Changes

''This article was originally published on [http://videri.org/index.php?title=Chants_Democratic| Videri.org] and is republished here with their permission.''

Though the Panic of 1837 undermined the efforts on unions and journeymen, trade unionism continued as it persisted as an underground entity. Moreover, individuals such as Mike Walsh continued to advocate for workingmen though his own efficacy was undermined after he had been coopted by Southern democrats in Congress. Protective unions and benefit associations emerged as well to support craftsmen and others. Additionally, German and Irish immigrants founded their own organizations to represent their views. If some craftsmen remained nativists, they couched their nativist arguments in which immigrant restrictions centered not on cultural differences but as a way to limit “capitalistic greed and underpayment”. By the 1850s, trade union activism no longer provided the only sharp criticism of the status quo. Rather the growth of the land reform, notably through the NRA (some label it a form of petit bourgeoisie radicalism but also helped labor activism) which kept alive a network of radical trade unionists. Though women often emerge as secondary figures in Chants Democratic, Wilentz does note that the trade unions ignored women labor or decried it as demeaning. Still, militant female labor activists did surface in the same period as well. Ultimately, Wilentz argues that by 1850 the city’s population was riven by class, a divide that continued well after the Civil War.

“This book is concerned with the reordering of the antebellum city, the relationship between the city’s social and political transformations, and the creation of machine politics as the American way of city government.” Amy Bridges begins her seminal work A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics with this intent in mind. For Bridges, changes in municipal government were not isolated from the national scene but rather reflected similar developments [Einhorn makes a similar argument when discussing Chicago’s segmented system of the 1800s. ie. It reflected the “strict constructionism” of the day] Pushing back against earlier conclusions regarding urban government, Bridges identifies three tropes that she finds questionable. First ,ethnicity in the Antebellum age mattered less than historians have argued [wilentz might agree with this in the sense that by the 1850s it had been reduced somewhat as evidenced by the importance of Irish and German immigrants participation in 1850 strikes/ he might also disagree since he went to great lengths to illustrate the nativism that affected many journeymen and the labor movement itself]. Second, often historians conflate the development of machine politics with the arrival of immigrants. Bridges suggests that the origins of machine politics began earlier, “to understand the institutional arrangements we associate with machine politics, we must look further back in American urban history that the arrival of the immigrants or the ascent of the Irish to political power.” (5) [add to this her point that “personal loyalty/personal deference, aspects of machine politics began well before among patrician leadership”]. Finally, machine politics itself formed out of historical context the result of “inheritance and transformation, compromise, inadvertence, and conflict.” (5) Therefore, historians have failed to weigh on the contending or countervailing forces at work. In this way, Bridges argues machine politics did not institutionalize “a particular set of values”.

Like Wilentz, Bridges identifies the broad economic changes of antebellum New York City that helped to create the foundation for machine politics. For example, Bridges too notes the growing hostility between masters and journeymen, employers and employee, however she also explores the effects of the upper classes retreat from public life. The proliferation of city agencies and the professionalization of the police and fire departments gradually removed authority from the city’s upper classes. Volunteer fire departments once featured relative class diversity, but prior to their professionalization, they had become predominantly working class [wilentz notes this as well]. Other aspects of public life endured similar shifts, enabling the political class to build power. As Bridges notes, recipients of local aid probably cared little if support came from wealthy patricians or ward heelers, “In sum the career politician began where the patrician left off. The friendship for the poor and the workingman that was a hallmark of the persona of the boss was part of the career politician from the beginning.” (74) Moreover, the local artisanal association, community groups, and other smaller organizations created the foundation for ward politics, though the ward already served as the city’s primary political unit.

Criticisms – neither Wilentz nor Bridges address gender in any great detail, although Wilentz does mention it in numerous places… still, he fails to really delve into such issues.