- During the Industrial Revolution, cities grew rapidly as people moved from rural areas to factories. This increased demand for labor and drew many European immigrants to American cities. - Immigrants faced difficult living conditions in overcrowded tenement housing with limited amenities. They also experienced discrimination in the workplace from native workers. - As city populations boomed, local governments struggled to provide necessary services. Political bosses filled this void by offering jobs, services and favors in exchange for votes, gaining control of municipal governments. While sometimes improving infrastructure, machine politics also led to corruption.

2. Cities During
Industrialization
• Business and industrialization centered on the cities. The increasing
number of factories created a need for labor, convincing people in
rural areas to move to the city, and drawing immigrants from Europe
to the United States. As a result, the United States transformed from
a farming to an urban nation.

3. Immigration
• Roughly 10 million European
immigrants settled in the U.S. between
1860 and 1890.
• The transition to American life was
difficult for immigrants. They lived in
dirty, crowded conditions in
tenements. Tenements had few
windows, limited plumbing and
electricity, and tiny rooms often
packed with people. People living in
the tenements experienced disease,
high infant mortality, and high levels
of pollution.
• Immigrants, also faced discrimination
in the workplace from native workers
who resented the immigrants’
willingness to accept lower wages and
work in worse conditions.

5. Why did Political Bosses
Emerge?
Chicago, 1890
• Populations in major cities such
as New York and Philadelphia
doubled, and in the case of
Chicago quadrupled, due to the
migration of farmers and
immigrants.
• Municipal (city) governments
were unprepared to handle the
population growth of cities.
Many city governments took a
laissez-faire (hands-off)
approach. For example, systems
for sanitation, sewer, roads, etc.
were not built for populations
that large.
• Political bosses took advantage of the situation for their own political gain.

6. Political Machines
• Local politics during this era were marked by “machine
politics”, because the system and the party, rather than
individuals, held power.
• In virtually every region of the U.S., local officials, or
“machines,” bribed people, especially immigrants, for votes by
providing political and economic benefits such as offices, jobs,
and city contracts.
• “Machines” were presided over by “party bosses,” professional
politicians who dominated city government. These bosses often
controlled the jobs of thousands of city workers and influenced
the activities of schools, hospitals, and other city-run services.
• Machine politics thrived on corruption, which contributed to
the system’s collapse around the turn of the twentieth century.

7. Political Machines (cont)
• In U.S. politics, a political organization that controls enough votes to
maintain political and administrative control of its community.
• The rapid growth of cities in the 19th century created huge problems for
city governments, which were often poorly organized and unable to provide
services.
• Enterprising politicians were able to win support by offering favors,
including patronage jobs and housing, (BETTERING URBAN
INFRASTRUCTURE) in exchange for votes.
• Though machines often helped to restructure city governments to the
benefit of their constituents, they just as often resulted in poorer service
corruption and aggravation of racial or ethnic hostilities.
• Poor service occurred when jobs were given out as political rewards.
Corruption occurred when contracts or concessions were awarded in return
for kickbacks. Racial issues occurred when the machine did not reflect the
city's diversity.
•
Reforms, suburban flight, and a more mobile population with fewer ties to
city neighborhoods have weakened machine politics.

8. Operations of
Political Machines
Primary Source
• "What tells in holdin' your grip on your district is to go right down
among the poor families and help them in the different ways they
need help. I've got a regular system for this. If there's a fire in Ninth,
Tenth, or Eleventh Avenue, for example, any hour of the day or
night, I'm usually there with some of my election district captains as
soon as the fire engines. If a family is burned out, I don't ask whether
they are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't refer them to the
Charity Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a
month or two and decide they were worthy of help about the time
they are dead from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes
for them if their clothes were burned up, and fix them up till they get
things runnin' again. It's philanthropy, but it's politics, too – mighty
good politics. Who can tell how many votes one of these fires bring
me? The poor are the most grateful people in the world, and, let me
tell you, they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich
have in theirs.”
- George Washington Plunkitt

9. Example of a
Political Machine

10. Tammany Hall, located at Fourth Avenue and East 17th
Street in New York City, ca. 1943.

11. Tammany Hall
• Tammany Hall was the name given to
the Democratic political machine that
dominated New York City politics from
the 1854 through the election of
LaGuardia in 1934.
• The Tammany Society of New York
City was founded in 1786 as a fraternal
organization whose primary activities
were social. By 1798, however, the
society's activities had grown
increasingly politicized. Eventually
Tammany emerged as the central
supporter of Jeffersonian policies in the
city of New York.

12. Tammany Hall (cont.)
• Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, the society expanded its
political control even further by earning the loyalty of the
city's ever-expanding immigrant community.
• The society helped newly arrived foreigners obtain jobs,
find a place to live, and even earn citizenship so that they
could vote for Tammany candidates in city and state
elections.
• William M. "Boss" Tweed was a famous political boss of
Tammany Hall. His corrupt reign led to an attempt at
reform in the early 1870s.

13. Thomas Nast
was the most
important
political
cartoonist in
19th-century
America, known
for exposing
government
corruption.

14. The ‘Brains.’
The Boss.
-‘Well, what
are you going
to do about
it?’” Harper’s
Weekly,
October 21,
1871, page
992.
Taken from http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/cgaweb/nast/keller

15. Positive Aspects of
Political Bosses
• Political bosses ran a “welfare state” for urban poor. They helped the
unemployed find jobs, provided food and coal to widows, and organized
entertainment in neighborhoods. All of these items were contingent upon the
poor voting for the political machine’s candidate.
• Who benefited?
•
•
•
Immigrants, working poor
Political bosses gained political power
Those given jobs for votes
• Improvements in Infrastructure
•
•
•
Public Libraries- world’s largest in Boston
Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park- New York City
660 miles of water lines; 464 miles of sewer lines; 1,800 miles of paved streets

16. Why don’t we have
Political Bosses today?
• No place for them in cities that are more organized and
well planned out to handle large populations.
• No huge waves of immigrants all at one time.

17. Assignment
• You will now create a political machine campaign ad.
Follow the instructions on the paper you have about this
assignment.
• When you complete your assignment, you will submit it
through edmodo.com or turn into your folder. This
assignment will need to be submitted by Friday.