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Author: Charles River Editors Publisher: Independently Published ISBN: 9781798287750 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 80
Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." - Boss Tweed "It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization." - Kenneth D. Ackerman Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America's largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the "American Dream" for centuries. However, for all the promise and opportunities America seemingly held out, and for all of the nostalgia and pride the country's history invokes among Americans today, the simple truth is many never climbed the ladder. One of the few who did was William Magear Tweed, known more widely as Boss Tweed, one of the most famous - and corrupt - politicians in American history. In the 19th century, Tweed was an influential mover and shaker for Tammany Hall, the infamous Democratic political machine in New York City and the driving force behind the party's success in the city for decades. Although Tweed never technically held a position of power in New York City's government, he essentially ran the city and its finances between 1868 and 1871 as a political boss of Tammany, and even before that, Tweed would make a name for himself among politicians as an alderman who had a penchant for figuring out how to profit from political situations. By the end of his life, people across the state commonly referred to his operation as the Tweed Ring. While Tweed was at one point among the wealthiest men in the country during the 19th century, he would die in prison thanks to the illegal accumulation of this wealth. Over the course of his time at Tammany Hall, he would steal millions of dollars from state taxpayers, and he was known for extorting large sums of money for political favors. He was finally brought down by the media in a crusade of sorts that would set the precedent for how the press would deal with political scandals for years to come. As a contemporary writer, William R. Martin, put it in 1878, "Three casual expressions attributed to Mr. Tweed, illustrated by his brief political history, indicate his theory of administration. The first was, 'The way to have power is to take it;' the second, 'He is human;' and the third, 'What are you going to do about it?' In his career was exhibited the despotic phase of municipal administration. He got for himself and his associates offices, one after the other, by taking them with or without right, until he held the power of the State, and then fortified his position by enacting appropriate laws. His means of doing this was to approach men through their self-interests, and to buy their support by promises, offices, and money. His appreciation of this trait in the character of the men about him was expressed in his belief that they were 'human.' The arrogance of the full possession of power and the defiance against the remonstrances of honest men drove him to the extreme of audacity, 'What are you going to do about it?' which preceded his fall. There was no greater popular mistake than to call Mr. Tweed and his associates a 'ring.' They were so at the outset by the 'cohesive power of public plunder, ' but, once in possession, like a crew of pirates who had gained the deck of a prize, they became arrayed against each other."
Author: Charles River Editors Publisher: Independently Published ISBN: 9781798287750 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 80
Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." - Boss Tweed "It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization." - Kenneth D. Ackerman Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America's largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the "American Dream" for centuries. However, for all the promise and opportunities America seemingly held out, and for all of the nostalgia and pride the country's history invokes among Americans today, the simple truth is many never climbed the ladder. One of the few who did was William Magear Tweed, known more widely as Boss Tweed, one of the most famous - and corrupt - politicians in American history. In the 19th century, Tweed was an influential mover and shaker for Tammany Hall, the infamous Democratic political machine in New York City and the driving force behind the party's success in the city for decades. Although Tweed never technically held a position of power in New York City's government, he essentially ran the city and its finances between 1868 and 1871 as a political boss of Tammany, and even before that, Tweed would make a name for himself among politicians as an alderman who had a penchant for figuring out how to profit from political situations. By the end of his life, people across the state commonly referred to his operation as the Tweed Ring. While Tweed was at one point among the wealthiest men in the country during the 19th century, he would die in prison thanks to the illegal accumulation of this wealth. Over the course of his time at Tammany Hall, he would steal millions of dollars from state taxpayers, and he was known for extorting large sums of money for political favors. He was finally brought down by the media in a crusade of sorts that would set the precedent for how the press would deal with political scandals for years to come. As a contemporary writer, William R. Martin, put it in 1878, "Three casual expressions attributed to Mr. Tweed, illustrated by his brief political history, indicate his theory of administration. The first was, 'The way to have power is to take it;' the second, 'He is human;' and the third, 'What are you going to do about it?' In his career was exhibited the despotic phase of municipal administration. He got for himself and his associates offices, one after the other, by taking them with or without right, until he held the power of the State, and then fortified his position by enacting appropriate laws. His means of doing this was to approach men through their self-interests, and to buy their support by promises, offices, and money. His appreciation of this trait in the character of the men about him was expressed in his belief that they were 'human.' The arrogance of the full possession of power and the defiance against the remonstrances of honest men drove him to the extreme of audacity, 'What are you going to do about it?' which preceded his fall. There was no greater popular mistake than to call Mr. Tweed and his associates a 'ring.' They were so at the outset by the 'cohesive power of public plunder, ' but, once in possession, like a crew of pirates who had gained the deck of a prize, they became arrayed against each other."
Author: Terry Golway Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0871407922 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
“Golway’s revisionist take is a useful reminder of the unmatched ingenuity of American politics.”—Wall Street Journal 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 Ireland’s potato famine, the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages— and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer).
Author: Denis Tilden Lynch Publisher: Transaction Publishers ISBN: 1412816009 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 482
Book Description
No political scandal in American history has had a greater impact on America's political consciousness than the rise and fall of the "Tweed Ring" in New York City between 1866 and 1871. In an age ripe with scandal both public and private, the spectacular corruption charged to "Boss" Tweed and his associates-estimates of their extortion range from $20 million to $200 million-became an enduring symbol of the dark side of democratic politics. The Tweed Ring contributed much more than cartoonist impressions; it helped to shape a powerful theory of political reform. It was in truth one of the formative events of progressivism, that multifaceted doctrine that has evolved into the modern American creed. In this sense, the Tweed Ring was to produce not only deep misgivings about the existing regime, but an insight into how it should be reformed. Denis Tilden Lynch's biography of "Boss" Tweed was first published in 1927, in a time filled, like Tweed's, with sudden prosperity, daunting problems, and spectacular scandals. It is a straight-forward, workmanlike study, untroubled by the conceits of modern historical scholarship, and close enough to its subject's generation to have some of the immediacy of journalism. Of all the books published about the Tweed affair, Lynch's study is the only one that is a genuine biography, in which the man himself is the focus. For this reason it conveys something of the texture of daily life in New York in the nineteenth century, while bringing Tweed out from behind the shadows of Thomas Nast's leering cartoons, and presenting him, as much as is possible, as a man and not an icon. An interesting example of Americana, this volume will be of interest to historians of the period as well as those interested in American urban and political life.
Author: Richard F. Welch Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 143843183X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
King of the Bowery is the first full-length biography of Timothy D. "Big Tim" Sullivan, the archetypal Tammany Hall leader who dominated New York City politics—and much of its social life—from 1890 to 1913. A poor Irish kid from the Five Points who rose through ambition, shrewdness, and charisma to become the most powerful single politician in New York, Sullivan was quick to perceive and embrace the shifting demographics of downtown New York, recruiting Jewish and Italian newcomers to his largely Irish machine to create one of the nation's first multiethnic political organizations. Though a master of the personal, paternalistic, and corrupt politics of the late nineteenth century, Sullivan paradoxically embraced a variety of progressive causes, especially labor and women's rights, anticipating many of the policies later pursued by his early acquaintances and sometimes antagonists Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Drawing extensively on contemporary sources, King of the Bowery offers a rich, readable, and authoritative potrayal of Gotham on the cusp of the modern age, as refracted through the life of a man who exemplified much of it. "... a necessary book for anyone unsatisfied by the usual histories of Irish-American urban political machines. ... The Irish-American boss has rarely been awarded the careful appraisal of the kind that Welch ... gives Sullivan. ... But caveat lector: you don't have to be Irish American or a New Yorker or a Democrat to enjoy this book. All you have to be is interested in a well-told story that is also a first-rate work of history." — Peter Quinn, Commonweal
Author: Kenneth D. Ackerman Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub ISBN: 9780786714353 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 437
Book Description
A lively account of the life of a New York legend traces the rise of Boss Tweed, the corrupt party boss who controlled New York politics through a combination of corruption, bribery, and coercion until his own over-reaching destroyed him.
Author: John Adler Publisher: Morgan James Publishing ISBN: 1600374433 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 332
Book Description
This volume is a collection of political cartoons by Thomas Nast that brought Boss Tweed to justice. The legendary Boss Tweed effectively controlled New York City from after the Civil War until his downfall in November 1871. A huge man, he and his Ring of Thieves appeared to be invincible as they stole an estimated $2 billion in today's dollars. In addition to the New York City and state governments, the Tweed Ring controlled the press except for Harper's Weekly. Short and slight Thomas Nast was the most dominant American political cartoonist of all time; using his pen as his sling in Harper's Weekly, he attacked Tweed almost single-handily, before The New-York Times joined the battle in 1870. The author focuses on the circumstances and events as Thomas Nast visualized them in his 160-plus cartoons, almost like a serialized but intermittent comic book covering 1866 through 1878.
Author: Seymour P. Lachman Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438434545 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
Winner of the 2011 Empire State History Book Award presented by New York State Archives Partnership Trust The Man Who Saved New York offers a portrait of one of New York's most remarkable governors, Hugh L. Carey, with emphasis on his leadership during the fiscal crisis of 1975. In this dramatic and colorful account, Seymour P. Lachman and Robert Polner's examine Carey's youth, military service, and public career against the backdrop of a changing, challenged, and recession-battered city, state, and nation. It was Carey's leadership, Lachman and Polner argue, that helped rescue the city and state from the brink of financial and social ruin. While TV comedians mocked and tabloids shrieked about the Big Apple's rising muggings, its deteriorating public services, and the threats and walkouts by embattled police, firefighters, and teachers, all amid a brutal recession, Carey and his team managed to hold on and ultimately prevailed, narrowly preventing a huge disruption to the state, national, and global economy. At one point, the city came within a few hours of having to declare itself incapable of paying its debts and obligations, but in the end stability and consensus prevailed, and America's largest city stayed out of bankruptcy court. The center held. Based on extensive interviews with Carey and his family, as well as numerous friends, observers, and former advisors, including Steven Berger, David Burke, John Dyson, Peter Goldmark, Judah Gribetz, Richard Ravitch, and Felix Rohatyn, The Man Who Saved New York aims to place Carey and his achievements at the center of the financial maelstrom that met his arrival in Albany. While others were willing to let the city go into default, Carey was strongly opposed, since it would not only affect the state as a whole but would have reverberations both nationally and internationally. In recounting the 1975 rescue of New York City and the aftershocks that nearly sank the state government, Lachman and Polner illuminate the often-volatile interplay among elite New York bankers, hard-nosed municipal union leaders, the press, and influential conservatives and liberals from City Hall to the Albany statehouse to the White House. Although often underappreciated by the public, it was Carey's force of will, wit, intellect, judgment, and experiences that allowed the state to survive this unparalleled ordeal and ultimately to emerge on a stronger footing. Further, Lachman and Polner argue, Carey's accomplishment is worth recalling as a prime example of how governments—local, state, and federal—can work to avoid the renewed the threat of bankruptcy that now confronts many overstretched states and localities.
Author: Niklas Luhmann Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 150951791X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 80
Book Description
Any organization, no matter how stolid, may be unsettled by the news that a new boss is about to take over. Talk in the hallways increases, staff worry about their jobs, uncertainty grows. Even when the change has happened, problems emerge when the boss who was hired to manage “from above” has to learn about the organization “from below.” In this book, Niklas Luhmann scrutinizes the relationship and shows how it is stretched to its limit by communication difficulties, demands for self-presentation, and disagreements concerning fundamental values. Many of the tensions crystallize around the question “who has the power?” It isn’t necessarily the boss, provided the employees are well versed in the art of directing their superiors. “Subtervision” is Luhmann’s term for this state of affairs, and tact is the most important means to this end. Yet caution is advised: whoever achieves mastery in subtervision may well become the new boss. This slim and thought-provoking book from one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century will be of great interest to anyone seeking to understand the dynamics and machinations of the workplace.
Author: Richard Zacks Publisher: Anchor ISBN: 0385534027 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 629
Book Description
A ROLLICKING NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S EMBATTLED TENURE AS POLICE COMMISSIONER OF CORRUPT, PLEASURE-LOVING NEW YORK CITY IN THE 1880s, AND HIS DOOMED MISSION TO WIPE OUT VICE In the 1890s, New York City was America’s financial, manufacturing, and entertainment capital, and also its preferred destination for sin, teeming with 40,000 prostitutes, glittering casinos, and all-night dives packed onto the island’s two dozen square miles. Police captains took hefty bribes to see nothing while reformers writhed in frustration. In Island of Vice, bestselling author Richard Zacks paints a vivid picture of the lewd underbelly of 1890s New York, and of Theodore Roosevelt, the cocksure crusading police commissioner who resolved to clean up the bustling metropolis, where the silk top hats of Wall Street bobbed past teenage prostitutes trawling Broadway. Writing with great wit and zest, Zacks explores how Roosevelt went head-to-head with corrupt Tammany Hall, took midnight rambles with muckraker Jacob Riis, banned barroom drinking on Sundays, and tried to convince 2 million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. In doing so, Teddy made a ruthless enemy of police captain “Big Bill” Devery, who grew up in the Irish slums and never tired of fighting “tin soldier” reformers. Roosevelt saw his mission as a battle of good versus evil; Devery saw prudery standing in the way of fun and profit. When righteous Roosevelt’s vice crackdown started to succeed all too well, many of his own supporters began to turn on him. Cynical newspapermen mocked his quixotic quest, his own political party abandoned him, and Roosevelt discovered that New York loves its sin more than its salvation. Zacks’s meticulous research and wonderful sense of narrative verve bring this disparate cast of both pious and bawdy New Yorkers to life. With cameos by Stephen Crane, J. P. Morgan, and Joseph Pulitzer, plus a horde of very angry cops, Island of Vice is an unforgettable portrait of turn-of-the-century New York in all its seedy glory, and a brilliant portrayal of the energetic, confident, and zealous Roosevelt, one of America’s most colorful public figures.
Author: Charles River Editors
Author: Charles River Editors
Author: Terry Golway
Author: Denis Tilden Lynch
Author: Richard F. Welch
Author: Kenneth D. Ackerman
Author: John Adler
Author: Gustavus Myers
Author: Seymour P. Lachman
Author: Niklas Luhmann
Author: Richard Zacks