Book description
History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from…
Why read it?
1 author picked Machine Made as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I grew up with stereotypes about Tammany Hall as a nest of New York political corruption. Golway offers a knowledgeable corrective that shows how the urban machine garnered votes from new immigrant groups and maintained its power by pioneering then-radical social reforms such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation for those maimed on the job, and a minimum wage.
He traces the organization’s decline to changing New York City demographics and a lost ability to respond to the emerging challenges and changes of the post-WWII era—trends that left it vulnerable to a group of college-educated young Democratic Party reformers, both…
From Michael's list on Irish-American rebel attorney Paul O’Dwyer.
If you love Machine Made...
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The Battle of Cowpens was fought in an obscure field in rural South Carolina on January 17, 1781, yet somehow it had the power to change the world.
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