Download or read book When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia written by Peter McCaffery and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Boss Rule in the Gilded Age written by James A. Kehl and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matt Quay was called "the ablest politician this country has ever produced." He served as a United States senator representing Pennsylvania from 1887 to 1904. His career as a Republican Party boss, however, spanned nearly half a century, during which numerous governors and one president owed their election success to his political skills. James A. Kehl was given the first public access to Quay's own papers, and herein presents the inside story of this controversial man who was considered a political Robin Hood for his alleged bribe-taking, misappropriations of funds, and concern for the underprivileged-yet he emerged as the most powerful member of the Republican Party in his state.
Download or read book Colored Amazons written by Kali N. Gross and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the state, black female crime and its representations effectively galvanized and justified a host of urban reform initiatives that reaffirmed white, middle-class authority."--Jacket.
Download or read book Philadelphia written by Paul Kahan and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2024-10-29 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philadelphia is famous for its colonial and revolutionary buildings and artifacts, which draw tourists from far and wide to gain a better understanding of the nation’s founding. Philadelphians, too, value these same buildings and artifacts for the stories they tell about their city. But Philadelphia existed long before the Liberty Bell was first rung, and its history extends well beyond the American Revolution.In Philadelphia: A Narrative History, Paul Kahan presents a comprehensive portrait of the city, from the region’s original Lenape inhabitants to the myriad of residents in the twenty-first century. As any history of Philadelphia should, this book chronicles the people and places that make the city unique: from Independence Hall to Eastern State Penitentiary, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross to Cecil B. Moore and Cherelle Parker. Kahan also shows us how Philadelphia has always been defined by ethnic, religious, and racial diversity—from the seventeenth century, when Dutch, Swedes, and Lenapes lived side by side along the Delaware; to the nineteenth century, when the city was home to a vibrant community of free Black and formerly enslaved people; to the twentieth century, when it attracted immigrants from around the world. This diversity, however, often resulted in conflict, especially over access to public spaces. Those two themes— diversity and conflict— have shaped Philadelphia’s development and remain visible in the city’s culture, society, and even its geography. Understanding Philadelphia’s past, Kahan says, is key to envisioning future possibilities for the City of Brotherly Love.
Download or read book Fighting Irish in the American Civil War and the Invasion of Mexico written by Arthur H. Mitchell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-04-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As mid-19th century America erupted in violence with the invasion of Mexico and the outbreak of the Civil War, Irish immigrants joined the fray in large numbers, on both sides. They sometimes were disruptive elements. In Mexico, a body of Irish artillerymen defected to the other side. During the Civil War, Patrick Cleburne stirred controversy in the Confederacy when he proposed enlisting slaves in exchange for their freedom. The New York draft riots, a violent insurrection by a predominantly Irish mob, raged for three days before Federal troops restored order. Despite turmoil and contention, the Irish soldiers who fought in the Union army contributed significantly to the preservation of the United States. This collection of essays examines the involvement of Irish men and women in America's conflicts from 1840 to 1865.
Download or read book Making and Remaking Pennsylvania s Civil War written by William Blair and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Steel City Gospel written by Keith A. Zahniser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrating the power religious language, ideas, and institutions had in shaping progressive reform in Pittsburgh, this cross-disciplinary study addresses significant debates in the fields of Progressive-Era political history and American religious history, while telling the story of an industrial city in a crucial era of change.
Download or read book Steel City Gospel written by Keith A. Zahniser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrating the power religious language, ideas, and institutions had in shaping progressive reform in Pittsburgh, this cross-disciplinary study addresses significant debates in the fields of Progressive-Era political history and American religious history, while telling the story of an industrial city in a crucial era of change.
Download or read book Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso written by Kali N. Gross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The narrative of the discovery of a hacked up body outside of Philadelphia leads to a police investigation and trial of a woman and man, which sheds light on post-Reconstruction America, the history of African Americans, illicit sex, and domestic violence.
Download or read book The Making of Urban America written by Raymond A. Mohl and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1997 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition is designed to introduce students of urban history to recent interpretive literature in this field. Its goal is to provide a coherent framework for understanding the pattern of American urbanization, while at the same time offering specific examples of the work of historians in the field.
Download or read book Roaring Metropolis written by Daniel Amsterdam and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roaring Metropolis reconstructs the ideas and activism of urban capitalists in the early twentieth century as they advocated extensive government spending on an array of social programs. Focusing on Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, the book traces businessmen's quest to build cities and nurture an urban citizenry friendly to capitalism.
Download or read book The Condemnation of Blackness written by Khalil Gibran Muhammad and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-22 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the John Hope Franklin Prize A Moyers & Company Best Book of the Year “A brilliant work that tells us how directly the past has formed us.” —Darryl Pinckney, New York Review of Books How did we come to think of race as synonymous with crime? A brilliant and deeply disturbing biography of the idea of black criminality in the making of modern urban America, The Condemnation of Blackness reveals the influence this pernicious myth, rooted in crime statistics, has had on our society and our sense of self. Black crime statistics have shaped debates about everything from public education to policing to presidential elections, fueling racism and justifying inequality. How was this statistical link between blackness and criminality initially forged? Why was the same link not made for whites? In the age of Black Lives Matter and Donald Trump, under the shadow of Ferguson and Baltimore, no questions could be more urgent. “The role of social-science research in creating the myth of black criminality is the focus of this seminal work...[It] shows how progressive reformers, academics, and policy-makers subscribed to a ‘statistical discourse’ about black crime...one that shifted blame onto black people for their disproportionate incarceration and continues to sustain gross racial disparities in American law enforcement and criminal justice.” —Elizabeth Hinton, The Nation “Muhammad identifies two different responses to crime among African-Americans in the post–Civil War years, both of which are still with us: in the South, there was vigilantism; in the North, there was an increased police presence. This was not the case when it came to white European-immigrant groups that were also being demonized for supposedly containing large criminal elements.” —New Yorker
Download or read book Encyclopedia of American Urban History written by David Goldfield and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1057 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book From Paesani to White Ethnics written by Stefano Luconi and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the transformations of Italian American ethnic identity in twentieth-century Philadelphia.
Download or read book Independence Hall in American Memory written by Charlene Mires and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-11-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Independence Hall is a place Americans think they know well. Within its walls the Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, and in 1787 the Founding Fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution there. Painstakingly restored to evoke these momentous events, the building appears to have passed through time unscathed, from the heady days of the American Revolution to today. But Independence Hall is more than a symbol of the young nation. Beyond this, according to Charlene Mires, it has a long and varied history of changing uses in an urban environment, almost all of which have been forgotten. In Independence Hall, Mires rediscovers and chronicles the lost history of Independence Hall, in the process exploring the shifting perceptions of this most important building in America's popular imagination. According to Mires, the significance of Independence Hall cannot be fully appreciated without assessing the full range of political, cultural, and social history that has swirled about it for nearly three centuries. During its existence, it has functioned as a civic and cultural center, a political arena and courtroom, and a magnet for public celebrations and demonstrations. Artists such as Thomas Sully frequented Independence Square when Philadelphia served as the nation's capital during the 1790s, and portraitist Charles Willson Peale merged the arts, sciences, and public interest when he transformed a portion of the hall into a center for natural science in 1802. In the 1850s, hearings for accused fugitive slaves who faced the loss of freedom were held, ironically, in this famous birthplace of American independence. Over the years Philadelphians have used the old state house and its public square in a multitude of ways that have transformed it into an arena of conflict: labor grievances have echoed regularly in Independence Square since the 1830s, while civil rights protesters exercised their right to free speech in the turbulent 1960s. As much as the Founding Fathers, these people and events illuminate the building's significance as a cultural symbol.
Download or read book The Roots of Educational Inequality written by Erika M. Kitzmiller and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2021-12-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through a fresh, longitudinal analysis that investigates daily events rather than focusing solely on key turning points, this study challenges conventional, declension narratives that suggest that American high schools have moved steadily from pillars of success to institutions of failures. Instead, this work demonstrates that educational inequality has been embedded in our nation's urban high schools since their founding. This book argues that public school have never been funded adequately, and instead, that so-called success of public schools is often tied to an influx of private funding and resources from families and communities that subsidizes inadequate public aid"--
Download or read book Rum Romanism and Rebellion written by Mark Wahlgren Summers and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-08-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The presidential election of 1884, in which Grover Cleveland ended the Democrats' twenty-four-year presidential drought by defeating Republican challenger James G. Blaine, was one of the gaudiest in American history, remembered today less for its political significance than for the mudslinging and slander that characterized the campaign. But a closer look at the infamous election reveals far more complexity than previous stereotypes allowed, argues Mark Summers. Behind all the mud and malarkey, he says, lay a world of issues and consequences. Summers suggests that both Democrats and Republicans sensed a political system breaking apart, or perhaps a new political order forming, as voters began to drift away from voting by party affiliation toward voting according to a candidate's stand on specific issues. Mudslinging, then, was done not for public entertainment but to tear away or confirm votes that seemed in doubt. Uncovering the issues that really powered the election and stripping away the myths that still surround it, Summers uses the election of 1884 to challenge many of our preconceptions about Gilded Age politics.
