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[[File:Chants_Democratic.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195174496/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195174496&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=f809975aa203472868c679af1f406c16 Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class: 1788-1850]</i> by Sean Wilentz]]
''This article was originally published on [http://videri.org/index.php?title=Chants_Democratic| Videri.org] and is republished here with their permission.''
Published in 1984, Amy Bridges’ ''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521070880/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521070880&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=9ad9599723862a49560cb9e39db18b33 A City in the Republic]'' and Sean Wilentz’s ''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195174496/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195174496&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=f809975aa203472868c679af1f406c16 Chants Democratic]'' each explore the creation of working-class consciousness in the political life of antebellum New York. However, though the works overlap and draw similar conclusions regarding several aspects of eighteenth-century New York, they do so from different vantage points.
<i>Chants Democratic</i> asserts that beginning with the market and transportation revolutions of the 1800s (notably the completion of the Erie Canal which helped to cement New York’s position as one of the premier manufacturing centers in the world) altered the relationships between journeymen and master artisans. New York’s unique blend of small scale but intensive and proliferating industry, employed people in a wide variety of crafts, each with their own interests.
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.
[[File:A_City_in_the_Republic.jpg|left|250px|thumbnail|<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521070880/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521070880&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=9ad9599723862a49560cb9e39db18b33 A City in the Republic:Antebellum New York and the origins of machine politics]</i> by Amy Bridges]]
Bridges' book was focused on how New York City was reordered during the antebellum era. During this period, New York saw the rise of machine politics as a way to run America's biggest city. Amy Bridges begins her seminal work <i>A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics </i>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. i.e., It reflected the “strict constructionism” of the day]
Her primary point is 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 to 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 before their professionalization, they had become predominantly working class [wilentz notes this as well].
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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.
One of the primary weaknesses of both Wilentz and Bridges books is the failure to address gender in any great detail. Although Wilentz does mention it in numerous places… still, he fails to delve deeper into this topic. It is highly unlikely that gender played no role in the development of American politics in New York City. Both of these books look at a period that corresponds to the rise of women's social movements and the Second Great Awakening. It is a whiff on the part of both authors.
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[http://videri.org/index.php?title=Guide_to_the_Literature Check out other great articles at Videri.org.]
[[Category:United States History]][[Category: History of the US Early Republic]][[Category:Book Review]][[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category: Political History]][[Category:Videri.org]]
