Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics:

graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his

groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway

dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for

marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from Ireland’s potato famine,

the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy

was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social

reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages—

and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without

Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made

reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions

of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer).