Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Political “Boss” – presided over the city’s “machine” – an unofficial political organization designed to keep a particular party or faction in office. –The “Boss” would listen to the constituents and lobby to improve their lot. –New York City – Tammany Hall – Democratic organization that dominated NY politics from 1830’s to 1930’s

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Machine Rule controlled: –Who was hired and fired at police and fire departments –Controlled voter turnout –Rewarded friends and punished enemies with taxes, licenses, and inspections –Favored contractors received tax breaks, large payoffs, and slipped them insider information about new street and sewer contracts.

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Machine Rule controlled: –On local level Ward bosses often acted as welfare agent: Helping the needy Protecting the troubled Boss Tweed / Tammany Hall –Donated 2,250,000+ –Dispensed sixty thousand patronage positions –Pumped up the city’s debt $70 million

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Harper’s Weekly satirized Tweed’s ring using the cartoon’s of immigrant cartoonist Thomas Nast. “I don’t care a straw for your newspaper articles-my constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures.”

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Battling Poverty –Urban Leaders – Jacob Riis (led other reformers) Believed that the basic cause of urban distress was the immigrants’ lack of self-discipline and self- control. Focused on moral improvement

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Battling Poverty –Urban Leaders – After Riis – –Jane Addams, Florence Kelley and other settlement house workers Examine the crippling impact of: – low wages –Danger working conditions

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Battling Poverty –Urban Leaders – Sympathy for Suffering turned to efforts to Americanize the immigrants and eliminate customs that they perceived as offensive and self-destructive –1843 – Robert Hartley – focused on destitute youth and abandoned street children New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor Charitable Society

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform Battling Poverty –Charles Loring Brace – New York Children’s Aid Society in 1853 Est. Dormitories, reading rooms, workshops to learn skills Shipped children to the country to live with families to work as farm hands –YMCA – 1851(U.S.)for boys who had migrated to the city.

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform The Social Gospel ’s –Washington Gladden (congregational minister in Columbus, Ohio True Christianity commits men and women to fight social injustice wherever it exists In response to violent strikes in 1877, he urged church leaders to mediate the conflict between business and labor –Walter Rauschenbusch - German Baptist church

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform The Social Gospel ’s –Walter Rauschenbusch - German Baptist church –Argued that a truly Christian society would unite all churches, reorganize the industrial system, and work for international peace –Led to the Federal Council of Churches, 1908

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform The Settlement-House Movement –1880’s people believed that reform from the top was ineffective –Relief workers would have to live in the poor neighborhoods (Jane Addams) –“Settlement House” was born

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform The Settlement-House Movement –Hull House (1889) – social center for recent immigrants, Invited them to plays, Sponsored art projects, Held classes in English, civics, cooking, and dressmaking Encouraged preservation of traditional crafts –Kindergarten, a laundry, an employment bureau, and a day nursery for working mothers –Recreational and athletic programs and dispensed legal aid and health care

Gilded Age Working-Class Politics and Reform The Settlement-House Movement –Addams and coworkers pressured politicians to enforce sanitation regulations –Addams served as garbage inspector for her local ward 1895 at least 50 settlement houses had opened around the nation.