This study of the emergence of machine politics in New York City during the antebellum years sheds light on the origins of a system that was the characteristic form of government in United States cities from the mid-nineteenth until well into the twentieth century. In contrast to previous explanations that have found the origins of machine politics in immigrant culture and ethnic conflict, Professor Bridges shows that central elements of the system long predated a significant immigrant presence. Her analysis focuses on two large-scale transformations in the American political economy that occurred during these years: industrialization, which reorganized the social order and provoked conflict and change; and the extension of the franchise through the abolition of property barriers, which necessitated the incorporation of 'the many' into political life. It was this unique combination of circumstances, the author argues, that provided the context for the development of machine politics.

A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics

History

Bridges, Amy

Americas

Cambridge University Press

This study of the emergence of machine politics in New York City during the antebellum years sheds light on the origins of a system that was the characteristic form of government in United States cities from the mid-nineteenth until well into the twentieth century. In contrast to previous explanations that have found the origins of machine politics in immigrant culture and ethnic conflict, Professor Bridges shows that central elements of the system long predated a significant immigrant presence. Her analysis focuses on two large-scale transformations in the American political economy that occurred during these years: industrialization, which reorganized the social order and provoked conflict and change; and the extension of the franchise through the abolition of property barriers, which necessitated the incorporation of 'the many' into political life. It was this unique combination of circumstances, the author argues, that provided the context for the development of machine politics.

George Washington Plunkitt once dismissed municipal reformers as "morning glories" who "looked lovely in the mornin' and withered up in a short time, while the regular machines went on flourishin' forever, like fine old oaks." Although this remark rings true for the Northeast in the days when Tammany Hall ruled New York City, municipal reformers have governed the big cities of the Southwest for most of this century. Obscuring this fact and ignoring the Southwest in general, familiar accounts of municipal reform have focused on small towns and suburbs as the only locations where reformers achieved their goals. Amy Bridges redresses this neglect by tracing the reform politics and government in large Southwestern cities since 1901, thereby giving a more complete account of municipal reform.
 In the Southwest, municipal reformers got everything they wanted: nonpartisanship, city managers, citywide elections, civil service, and a government with few social service responsibilities. Successful at limiting popular participation and at carefully targeting amenities to their core supporters, incumbents in big cities counted on re-election as confidently as could any machine politician. Urban leaders were aggressive in their pursuit of urban growth and very popular with the people who did vote, but the political community remained small. Not until the 1970s did growth and exclusionary practices combine to uproot the vigorous "morning glories" of the Southwest.

Morning Glories

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Princeton University Press

Social Sciences

State constitutions are blueprints for government institutions, declarations of collective identity, statements of principle, values, and goals. It naturally follows, and this book demonstrates, that the founding documents and the conventions that produced them reflect the emerging dynamics of American democracy in the nineteenth century. Nowhere is this more clear, Amy Bridges tells us in Democratic Beginnings, than in the American West. A close study of the constitutional conventions that founded eleven Western states, and of the constitutions they wrote, Democratic Beginnings traces the arc of Western development. Spanning the sixty years from California's constitution of 1850 to those of Arizona and New Mexico in 1910—and including Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming—Bridges shows how delegates to these states' constitutional conventions, pragmatically and creatively devised law and policy for the unprecedented challenges they faced. Far from the "island communities" of conventional 19th-century American history, these delegates, and the territories they represented, were thoroughly engaged in the central issues of their times, at the local, regional, and national levels—mining and agriculture, labor law and corporate responsibilities, water rights and government obligations, education and judicial practice. Theirs was not the Founders' constitutional convention. With very different tasks, delegates more representative of the population, and the experience of living in a democratic republic that their forebears lacked, the Western delegates found unparalleled opportunities at the conventions for popular input into law and public policy. What they did with these opportunities, and how these in turn shaped the emerging American West, is the story Democratic Beginnings tells.

Democratic Beginnings: Founding the Western States

University Press of Kansas

A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics (Cornell Paperbacks)

Cornell University Press

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a feminist classic, a haunting critique of the isolation treatment for female hysteria wrapped up in a superb psychological horror story. Over a century later women are still battling gender bias in the treatment of mental illness. Here are 15 stories of very different women who have in common the fact that they are fighting for control of their worlds and of their minds. Traci Orsi's "Waiting for Jordan" finds Julia hallucinating at home when her husband is shipped off to Iraq. Leah Chaffin's "Last Caress" delves into the sad and savage story of a rare female serial killer while in "An Obedient Girl" Amy Bridges relates her experience as an average girl who has a singular experience with a lobotomized woman. Age, religion, motherhood, sex and work life are all explored in these gripping stories of women who remain Behind the Yellow Wallpaper, battling valiantly and sometimes viciously to break free by any means necessary. Each story is paired with original photographic art by Loreal Prystaj. Prystaj’s dark, gripping art evoke the same despair, fear, anger, hopelessness, heartache, and fight for survival that make up these extraordinary New Tales of Madness.

Behind the Yellow Wallpaper: New Tales of Madness

Literature & Fiction

Frank, Gabriela Denise

Crawford, R.

Ahamed, Farah

Chaffins, Leah

Yndigoyen, Rose

Bensussen, Henri

Day, Judith

Hartenberger, Laura

Literary

New Lit Salon Press

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