Machine made
Subtitle: Tammany Hall and the creation of modern American politics
By: Terry Golway
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 367
ISBN-13: 9780871403759
Subjects: Politics and government; Irish Americans; Political corruption; Immigrants; Practical Politics; Tammany Hall (Political organization); Progressivism (United States politics); Municipal government; Political activity; History
Description: A journalist, historian, and expert on the Irish American experience tackles the common stereotypes and presents a revisionist version of the notoriously crooked Tammany Hall, describing the crucial social reforms and labor improvements they contributed.

"Historian Terry Golway has written a colorful history of Tammany Hall, which takes a more sympathetic view of the organization than many historians. He says the Tammany machine, while often corrupt, gave impoverished immigrants critically needed social services and a road to assimilation. According to Golway, Tammany was responsible for progressive state legislation that foreshadowed the New Deal. He writes that some of Tammany's harshest critics, including cartoonist Thomas Nast, openly exhibited a raw anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice."
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-346) and index.
Table of contents: title: "Tammany Hall belongs to us"; title: Mass politics; title: The Great Hunger; title: Civil War; title: A Tammany riot; title: Tammany's Irish Reconstruction; title: Challenging the Gilded Age; title: To hell with reform; title: An admirable organization?; title: Murphy's law; title: Frank and Al; title: The battle of two governors; title: Legacies.