Tammany Hall was the name given to the Democratic
political machine that dominated New York City politics
from the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854
through the election of Fiorello LaGuardia in 1934.
The eighty-year period between those two elections
marks the time in which Tammany was the city's driving
political force, but its origins actually date to
the late eighteenth century and its fall from power
was not truly complete until the early 1960s.
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 and
eventually Tammany emerged as the central proponent
of Jeffersonian policies in the city of New York.
Throughout the early nineteenth century Tammany continued
to deepen its association with the Democratic party,
emerging as the controlling interest in New York City
elections after Andrew Jackson's presidential victory
in 1828. 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. By 1854, all
these factors had combined to make Tammany a political
force of hegemonic proportions in New York City, conferring
immense power on the society's bosses and allowing
them to enrich themselves and their associates through
corruption and administrative abuse. William M. "Boss"
Tweed's infamously corrupt reign was nefarious enough
to incite an attempt at reform in the early 1870s,
but Tammany was consistently able to function in spite
of such efforts and continued to direct the flow of
money, patronage, and votes into the early 1930s.
Ultimately, even Tammany was unable to escape from
the drastic social and cultural changes brought on
by the Great Depression,
and in 1932 the machine suffered a dual setback when
Mayor James Walker was forced from office and FDR
was elected president. The New Deal helped alter the
demographic landscape of New York by restricting immigration
and making people less dependent on Tammany for jobs
and assistance, while the election of Fiorello LaGuardia
removed the City Hall from Tammany's immediate control.
Despite these setbacks, the Tammany machine achieved
something of a renaissance in the early 1950s under
the leadership of Carmine De Sapio, who succeeded
in engineering the elections of Robert Wagner in
1953
and Averell Harriman in 1954, while simultaneously
blocking the successful candidacies of those who
had
not curried his favor. Perhaps most notably among
these politicians was Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.,
whose defeat in the 1954 race for New York attorney
general was related to De Sapio's downstate mobilization
against his election. Inadvertently, De Sapio had
sown the seeds of his own ruin. ER held De Sapio
responsible
for her son's defeat and grew increasingly disgusted
with his political conduct through the rest of the
1950s. Eventually, she would join with her old friends
Herbert Lehman and
Thomas Finletter to form the New York Committee
for
Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to enhancing
the democratic process by opposing De Sapio's reincarnated
Tammany. Eventually, their efforts were successful,
and in 1961 De Sapio was removed from power. The
once
mighty Tammany political machine, now deprived of
its leadership, quickly faded from political importance
and by the mid-1960s had ceased to exist.
Sources:
Kilroe, Edwin P. Saint Tammany and the Origin
of the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order in the
City of New York. Washington, D.C.: George Washington
University Microfiche, 1913, 48.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor, The Years Alone.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, 274-276.
For more information on Tammany Hall,
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