Description
Democratic Machine has change into a fixture in American political history. Under Mayor Richard J. Daley, it acquired almost mythical (most likely notorious) status. Yet its origins have remained murky–some say it all started as a shady enterprise all the way through the ethnic upheaval of the late 1920s.
Based upon new research, this book offers a fresh standpoint. Formed through factional warfare and consolidated with methods borrowed from the business world, the machine grew out of the unfettered capitalism of the late 19th century. Its principal founder and first “boss,” Roger C. Sullivan, represented a generation of businessmen-politicians who emerged within the 1880s. Sullivan and his allies created an informal public power structure that, at the same time as serving their very own interests, also made government more functional. The machine is a product of The usa’s Gilded Age and the Progressive Era and offers a lesson in the benefits and limitations of representative government.