Machine Made

Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

By: Terry Golway

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

A major, surprising new history of New York's most famous political machine - Tammany Hall - revealing, beyond the vice and corruption, a birthplace of progressive urban politics.

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history.

In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes; Tammany's corruption was real, but so was its heretofore forgotten role in protecting marginalized and maligned immigrants in desperate need of a political voice. Irish immigrants arriving in New York during the 19th century faced an unrelenting onslaught of hyperbolic, nativist propaganda. They were voiceless in a city that proved, time and again, that real power remained in the hands of the mercantile elite, not with a crush of ragged newcomers flooding its streets. Haunted by fresh memories of the horrific Irish potato famine in the old country, Irish immigrants had already learned an indelible lesson about the dire consequences of political helplessness. Tammany Hall emerged as a distinct force to support the city's Catholic newcomers, courting their votes while acting as a powerful intermediary between them and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class.

In a city that had yet to develop the social services we now expect, Tammany often functioned as a rudimentary public welfare system and a champion of crucial social reforms benefiting its constituency, including workers' compensation, prohibitions against child labor, and public pensions for widows with children. Tammany figures also fought against attempts to limit immigration and to strip the poor of the only power they had - the vote.

©2014 Terry Golway (P)2014 Audible Inc.

an irish catholic reader

an irish catholic reader, St. Tammany is great & Tammany Hall is inspiring. The reader does sound Grumpy.

New view of role of Tammany Hall

Examination of Irish Catholics understanding of power as taught by British and how that drove Tammany Hall politics.

Colorful history of Tammany, NYC & 19th C America!

I picked up this book, expecting to learn more about the mechanisms of machine politics. I was not disappointed on this front, but I was surprised to learn about Tammany's role in the broader historic tides of 19th Century America.

Machine Made situates Tammany into the histories of Irish immigration, the Irish Potato Famine and British imperialism, slavery in America and the US Civil War, and progressive reform era politics which culminated in the New Deal.

The book also weaves into these major historical trends the personalities and relationships between Tammany affiliates from Bishop "Dagger" John Hughes and Boss Tweed to Al Smith and FDR. The Tammany wards of lower Manhattan also emerge as colorful characters in their own right.

A great read!

Great book, well performed!

Great for history buffs and political addicts. The names can be hard to keep track of, but the book is thorough and well researched.

Dramatic history storytelling on a grand scale

I got a real sense of the people, the personalities, and by god the flaws of the historical personae like no other book.