Tammany Hall Totally Explained

ť This article is about the political organization. For the band, see Tammany Hall NYC.

Tammany Hall was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. It usually controlled Democratic Party nominations and patronage in Manhattan from the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854 up to (but not including) the election of Fiorello LaGuardia in 1934, then weakened and collapsed.

History

1790–1850

The Tammany Society was founded in the 1780s. The name "Tammany" comes from Tamanend, a Native American leader of the Lenape. The society adopted many Native American words and customs, going so far as to call its hall a wigwam. The first Grand Sachem, as the leader was titled, was William Mooney, an upholsterer of Nassau Street. By 1798, however, the Society's activities had grown increasingly politicized and eventually Tammany, led by Aaron Burr, who was never actually a member, emerged as the center for Democratic-Republican Party politics in the city. Burr built the Tammany society into a political machine for the election of 1800, in which he was elected Vice President. Without Tammany, historians believe, President John Adams might have won New York state's electoral votes and won reelection. In 1830, the Society's headquarters were established on East 14th Street in a building called Tammany Hall, and thereafter the name of the building and the group were synonymous.
After 1839, Tammany became the city affiliate of the Democratic Party, emerging as the controlling interest in New York City elections after Andrew Jackson's. In the 1830s the Loco-Focos comprised a democratic, anti-monopoly faction that appealed to workingmen. 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, a task that was accomplished by helping newly-arrived foreigners obtain jobs, a place to live, and even citizenship so that they could vote for Tammany candidates in city and state elections. The mass immigrant constituency primarily functioned as a base of political capital. The "ward boss" served as the local vote gatherer and provider of patronage. New York City used the designation "ward" for its smallest political units from 1686–1938.

Immigrant Support

Tammany Hall’s electoral base lay predominantly with New York’s burgeoning immigrant constituency, which often exchanged political support for Tammany Hall’s patronage. In pre-New Deal America the extralegal services that Tammany and other urban political machines offered served as a rudimentary, if inadequate, public welfare system. The patronage Tammany Hall provided to immigrants, many of whom lived in extreme poverty and received little government assistance, covered three key areas. First, Tammany provided the means of physical existence in times of emergency: food, coal, rent money or a job. Second, Tammany served as a powerful intermediary between immigrants and the unfamiliar state, from dealing with the police and the bureaucracy to simply obtaining a pushcart license. Third, Tammany officials offered friendship and social intercourse to immigrants who found themselves in an unfamiliar social setting.
Tammany’s services are exemplified by a diary entry of ward boss George Washington Plunkitt in which during the course of a day he assisted the victims of a house fire; secured the release of six “drunks” by speaking on their behalf to a judge; paid the rent of a poor family to prevent their eviction and gave them money for food; secured employment for four men; attended the funerals of two of his constituents (one Italian, the other Jewish); attended a Bar Mitzvah; and attended the wedding of a Jewish couple from his ward.
Tammany Hall also served as a social integrator for immigrants by familiarizing them with American society and its political institutions and by helping them become naturalized citizens. One example was the massively expedited, although legally dubious, naturalization process organized by William Tweed. Under Tweed special naturalization committees were established to complete the forms, pay the fees and obtain the witnesses necessary for naturalizing immigrants, and judges were compelled to expedite naturalization proceedings.

The Irish

Tammany is forever linked with the rise of the Irish in American politics. Beginning in 1846, large numbers of Irish Catholics began arriving in New York. Equipped with a knowledge of English, very tight loyalties, a genius for politics, and what critics said was a propensity to use violence to control the polls, the Irish quickly dominated Tammany. In exchange for votes, they were provided with money and food. From 1872 onward, Tammany had an Irish "boss." They played an increasingly important role in state politics, supporting one candidate and feuding with another. The greatest success came in 1928 when a Tammany hero, New York Governor Al Smith, won the Democratic presidential nomination.

Tweed Machine

By 1854, Tammany's lineage and support from immigrants made it a powerful force in New York politics. Tammany controlled businesses, politics, and sometimes law enforcement. Businesses would give gifts to their workers and, in exchange, tell the workers to vote for the politicians that were supported by Tammany (usually a straight Democratic ticket). In 1854, the Society elected its first New York City mayor. Tammany's "bosses" (called the "Grand Sachem") and their supporters enriched themselves by illegal means. The most infamous boss of all was William M. "Boss" Tweed. Tweed's control over the Tammany Hall machine allowed him to win election to the New York State Senate. His political career ended when he became mired in corruption, and he went to prison along with his partner Francis I.A. Boole, after his ousting at the hands of a reform movement led by New York's Democratic governor Samuel J. Tilden in 1872. In 1892, a Protestant minister, Charles Henry Parkhurst, made a widely heard denunciation of the Hall, which led to a Grand Jury investigation, the appointment of the Lexow Committee and the election of a reform mayor in 1894.

1890–1950

Despite occasional defeats, Tammany was consistently able to survive and, indeed, prosper; it continued to dominate city and even state politics. Under leaders like John Kelly and Richard Croker, it controlled Democratic politics in the city. Tammany opposed William Jennings Bryan in 1896.
   In 1901, anti-Tammany forces elected a reformer, Republican Seth Low, to become mayor. From 1902 until his death in 1924, Charles F. Murphy was Tammany's boss. In 1932, the machine suffered a dual setback when Mayor James Walker was forced from office and reform-minded Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. Roosevelt stripped Tammany of its federal patronage—much expanded because of the New Deal—and handed city patronage to Ed Flynn, boss of the Bronx. Roosevelt helped Republican Fiorello LaGuardia become mayor on a Fusion ticket, thus removing even more patronage from Tammany's control.
   Tammany depended for its power on government contracts, jobs, patronage, corruption, and ultimately the ability of its leaders to swing the popular vote. The last element weakened after 1940 with the decline of relief programs like WPA and CCC that Tammany used to gain and hold supporters. Congressman Christopher "Christy" Sullivan was one of the last "bosses" of Tammany Hall before its collapse.
   Tammany never recovered, but it staged a small scale come-back in the early 1950s under the leadership of Carmine DeSapio, who succeeded in engineering the elections of Robert Wagner, Jr. as mayor in 1953 and Averell Harriman as state governor in 1954, while simultaneously blocking his enemies, especially Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. in the 1954 race for state Attorney General. Eleanor Roosevelt organized a counterattack with Herbert Lehman and Thomas Finletter to form the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to fighting Tammany. In 1961, the group helped remove DeSapio from power. The once mighty Tammany political machine, now deprived of its leadership, quickly faded from political importance, and by the mid-1960s it ceased to exist. The last building to serve as the physical Tammany Hall, on Union Square, is now home to the New York Film Academy. A large decorated flagpole base within Union Square Park is dedicated to sachem Charles F. Murphy.

Leaders

Date	Name
1797–1804	Aaron Burr
1804–1814	Teunis Wortmann
1814–1817	George Buckmaster
1817–1822	Jacob Barker
1822–1827	Stephen Allen
1827–1828	Mordecai M. Noah
1828–1835	Walter Bowne
1835–1842	Isaac Varian
1842–1848	Robert H. Morris
1848–1850	Isaac V. Fowler
1850–1856	Fernando Wood
1857–1858	Isaac V. Fowler
1858	Fernando Wood
1858–1859	William M. Tweed and Isaac V. Fowler
1859–1867	William M. Tweed and Richard B. Connolly
1867–1871	William M. Tweed
1872	John Kelly and John Morrissey
1872–1886	John Kelly
1886–1902	Richard Croker
1902	Lewis Nixon
1902	Charles F. Murphy, Daniel F. McMahon, and Louis F. Haffen
1902–1924	Charles F. Murphy
1924–1929	George W. Olvany
1929–1934	John F. Curry
1934–1937	James J. Dooling
1937–1942	Christopher D. Sullivan
1942	Charles H. Hussey
1942–1944	Michael J. Kennedy
1944–1947	Edward V. Loughlin
1947–1948
1948–1949	Hugo E. Rogers
1949–1961	Carmine G. DeSapio

Bibliography

Allen, Oliver E. The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall (1993)
Connable, Alfred, and Edward Silberfarb. Tigers of Tammany: Nine Men Who Ran New York. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
Cornwell, Jr., Elmer E. “Bosses, Machines, and Ethnic Groups.” In The City Boss in America: An Interpretive Reader, edited with commentary by Alexander B. Callow, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Costikyan, Edward N. "Politics in New York City: a Memoir of the Post-war Years." New York History 1993 74(4): 414–434. Issn: 0146-437x Costikyan was a member of the Tammany Executive Committee 1955–1964, and laments the passing of its social services and its unifying force
Erie, Steven P. Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840–1985 (1988).
Finegold, Kenneth. Experts and Politicians: Reform Challenges to Machine Politics in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago (1995) on Progressive Era
LaCerra, Charles. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Tammany Hall of New York. University Press of America, 1997. 118 pp.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor, The Years Alone. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, 274–276.
Lui, Adonica Y. "The Machine and Social Policies: Tammany Hall and the Politics of Public Outdoor Relief, New York City, 1874–1898." Studies in American Political Development (1995) 9(2): 386–403. Issn: 0898-588x
Mandelbaum, Seymour J. Boss Tweed's New York (1965) (ISBN 0-471-56652-7)
Moscow, Warren. The Last of the Big-Time Bosses: The Life and Times of Carmine de Sapio and the Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall (1971)
Mushkat, Jerome. Fernando Wood: A Political Biography (1990)
M. Ostrogorski; Democracy and the Party System in the United States (1910)
Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht. Aaron Burr; Portrait of an Ambitious Man 1967.
William Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (1963) 1915 memoir of New York City ward boss George Washington Plunkitt who coined the term "honest graft"
Sloat, Warren. A Battle for the Soul of New York: Tammany Hall, Police Corruption, Vice, and Reverend Charles Parkhurst's Crusade against Them, 1892–1895. Cooper Square, 2002. 482 pp.
Stave, Bruce M., John M. Allswang, Terrence J. McDonald, Jon C. Teaford. "A Reassessment of the Urban Political Boss: An Exchange of Views" History Teacher, Vol. 21, No. 3 (May, 1988), pp. 293–312
Steffens, Lincoln. The Shame of the Cities (1904) muckraking expose of machines in major cities
T. L. Stoddard, Master of Manhattan (1931), on Crocker
Thomas, Samuel J. "Mugwump Cartoonists, the Papacy, and Tammany Hall in America's Gilded Age." Religion and American Culture 2004 14(2): 213–250. Issn: 1052-1151 Fulltext: in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco
Nancy J. Weiss, Charles Francis Murphy, 1858–1924: respectability and responsibility in Tammany politics(1968).
M. R. Werner, Tammany Hall (1932)
Harold B. Zink; City Bosses in the United States: A Study of Twenty Municipal Bosses (1930)

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