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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