Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1986. Political machines, and the bosses who ran them, are largely a relic of the nineteenth century. A prominent feature in nineteenth-century urban politics, political machines mobilized urban voters by providing services in exchange for voters' support of a party or candidate. Allswang examines four machines and five urban bosses over the course of a century. He argues that efforts to extract a meaningful general theory from the American experience of political machines are difficult given the particularity of each city's history. A city's composition largely determined the character of its political machines. Furthermore, while political machines are often regarded as nondemocratic and corrupt, Allswang discusses the strengths of the urban machine approachchief among those being its ability to organize voters around specific issues.
Trade ReviewAllswang's study of political machines has been revised and updated to reflect developments in Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and other cities. Reviewers called it 'modest in size but meaty in content,' and said that although it is 'aimed at generalists, it will prove instructive to specialists as well.
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New York TimesTable of ContentsPreface to the 1986 Edition
Chapter 1. Of City Bosses and College Graduates
Chapter 2. William Marcy Tweed: The First Boss
Chapter 3. Charles Francis Murphy: The Enduring Boss
Chapter 4. Big Bill Thompson and Tony Cermak: The Rival Bosses
Chapter 5. Richard J. Daley: The Last Boss?
Chapter 6. Black Cities, White Machines
Epilogue: Of Bosses and Bossing
For Further Reading
Index
