Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

Author: William L. Riordon

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1995-11-01

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 1101099925

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Plunkitt of Tammany Hall A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics William L. Riordan “Nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft.” This classic work offers the unblushing, unvarnished wit and wisdom of one of the most fascinating figures ever to play the American political game and win. George Washington Plunkitt rose from impoverished beginnings to become ward boss of the Fifteenth Assembly District in New York, a key player in the powerhouse political team of Tammany Hall, and, not incidentally, a millionaire. In a series of utterly frank talks given at his headquarters (Graziano’s bootblack stand outside the New York County Court House), he revealed to a sharp-eared and sympathetic reporter named William L. Riordan the secrets of political success as practiced and perfected by him and fellow Tammany Hall titans. The result is not only a volume that reveals more about our political system than does a shelfful of civics textbooks, but also an irresistible portrait of a man who would feel happily at home playing ball with today’s lobbyists and king makers, trading votes for political and financial favors. Doing for twentieth-century America what Machiavelli did for Renaissance Italy, and as entertaining as it is instructive, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall is essential reading for those who prefer twenty-twenty vision to rose-colored glasses in viewing how our government works and why. With an Introduction by Peter Quinn and a New Afterword

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Author: Terry Golway

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2014-03-03

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 0871407922

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“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).

Doomed by Cartoon
Doomed by Cartoon

Author: John Adler

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Published: 2008-08-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1600374433

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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.

The Tammany Regiment
The Tammany Regiment

Author: Fred C. Wexler

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2016-01-20

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1491787716

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As the Union mobilized to meet the military challenges of the Civil War, the people of New York volunteered in large numbers to meet the quotas set by President Lincoln. Tammany Hall used all of its political power to recruit men, mostly Irish immigrants, to form the regiment that would bear its name throughout most of the fiercest fighting of the warfrom the bluffs outside Leesburg, the West Woods of Antietam, and the streets of Fredericksburg to Picketts Charge at Gettysburg and the chaos that was Petersburg. Of the more than one thousand men who started with the regiment in 1861, less than one hundred would remain in 1864. The Tammany Regiment: A History of the Forty-Second New York Volunteer Infantry is more than the history of a group of men fighting to preserve a way of life. It is a story of a powerful political machine. It is a story about how the Fenian Movement to free Ireland from England affected the men in the trenches. It is a story of how families survived the challenges of war and how they dealt with the tumultuous news they received about their loved ones. Draw closer to many of the men in the Tammany Regiment, and share their thoughts and fears as they faced three years of unbelievable hardship. Did they do what was right? Could they have done more? Were they treated fairly? One thing is for surethey will now be remembered!

St. Tammany Parish
St. Tammany Parish

Author: Frederick Stephen Ellis

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

Published: 1999-04-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781565545632

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A good local history is an excellent andagreeable thing. It pleases on two counts. It satisfies the curiosity of theinhabitants of a region, whether newcomers or old settlers, especially if noadequate history had existed before. It dispels myths, corrects old wives'tales. And, if the history is first-rate, it goes beyond a factual account ofpersons and places, the particularities of a region, and shows the significanceof these human happenings in a larger scheme of things, in this case theemergence of a new nation.Ellis's history succeeds on both counts. It is a delightful andauthoritative account of lore which not even St. Tammanyites may have heard of.Did you know, for example, that there was once a flourishing wine industry inSt. Tammany Parish? That local vineyards produced excellent red and whitewines, the red from Concord grapes, the white from Herbemont? Did you know thatin 1891 a rice crop of 50,000 barrels was harvested, half the entire output ofSouth Carolina? . . .Ellis has rendered this pleasant and authoritative history in a graceful andlively style and with a genuine affection for the people he writes about.Walker PercyFrom the Foreword

Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast

Author: John Chalmers Vinson

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0820346187

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Included in this book are more than 150 examples of Nast's work which, together with the author's commentary, recreate the life and pattern of artistic development of the man who made the political cartoon a respected and powerful journalistic form.

Boss Tweed
Boss Tweed

Author: Kenneth D. Ackerman

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 9780786714353

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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.