Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia: The Emergence of the Republican Machine, 1867-1933

When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia: The Emergence of the Republican Machine, 1867-1933

McCaffery, Peter

Paperback

19th Century United States HistoryGeneral Political ScienceRegional: Middle Atlantic

ISBN10: 0271034300
ISBN13: 9780271034300
Publisher: Penn St Univ Pr
Published: Sep 15 1993
Pages: 286
Weight: 0.94
Height: 0.65 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

In 1903, Muckraker Lincoln Steffens brought the city of Philadelphia lasting notoriety as the most corrupt and the most contented urban center in the nation. Famous for its colorful feudal barons, from King James McManes and his Gas Ring to Iz Durham and Sunny Jim McNichol, Philadelphia offers the historian a classic case of the duel between bosses and reformers for control of the American city. But, strangely enough, Philadelphia's Republican machine has not been subject to critical examination until now. When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia challenges conventional wisdom on the political machine, which has it that party bosses controlled Philadelphia as early as the 1850s and maintained that control, with little change, until the Great Depression. According to Peter McCaffery, however, all bosses were not alike, and political power came only gradually over time. McManes's Gas Ring in the 1870s was not as powerful as the well-oiled machine ushered in by Matt Quay in the late 1880s. Through a careful analysis of city records, McCaffery identifies the beneficiaries of the emerging Republican Organization, which sections of the local electorate supported it, and why. He concludes that genuine boss rule did not emerge as the dominant institution in Philadelphia politics until just before the turn of the century. McCaffery considers the function that the machine filled in the life of the city. Did it ultimately serve its supporters and the community as a whole, as Steffens and recent commentators have suggested? No, says McCaffery. The romantic image of the boss as good guy of the urban drama is wholly undeserved.

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