An Elusive Unity: Urban Democracy and Machine Politics in Industrializing America - Hardcover

Connolly, James J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801441919 ISBN 13: 9780801441912

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Although many observers have assumed that pluralism prevailed in American political life from the start, inherited ideals of civic virtue and moral unity proved stubbornly persistent and influential. The tension between these conceptions of public life was especially evident in the young nation's burgeoning cities. Exploiting a wide range of sources, including novels, cartoons, memoirs, and journalistic accounts, James J. Connolly traces efforts to reconcile democracy and diversity in the industrializing cities of the United States from the antebellum period through the Progressive Era.

The necessity of redesigning civic institutions and practices to suit city life triggered enduring disagreements centered on what came to be called machine politics. Featuring plebian leadership, a sharp masculinity, party discipline, and frank acknowledgment of social differences, this new political formula first arose in eastern cities during the mid-nineteenth century and became a subject of national discussion after the Civil War. During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, business leaders, workers, and women proposed alternative understandings of how urban democracy might work. Some tried to create venues for deliberation that built common ground among citizens of all classes, faiths, ethnicities, and political persuasions. But accommodating such differences proved difficult, and a vision of politics as the businesslike management of a contentious modern society took precedence. As Connolly makes clear, machine politics offered at best a quasi-democratic way to organize urban public life. Where unity proved elusive, machine politics provided a viable, if imperfect, alternative.

About this title

About the Author

James J. Connolly is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University and the author of The Triumph of Ethnic Progressivism: Urban Political Culture in Boston, 1900–1925.

From the Back Cover

"An Elusive Unity is a mix of a synthetic and thematic overview of institutional urban politics at a crucial turning point in U.S. history. James J. Connolly tackles the tricky issue of how democracy functions on the local level in the United States. Specifically, he investigates the problem of how different groups of urban residents in a handful of large, industrial cities-- predominantly New York and Chicago--envisioned the meaning of democratic government, contested over that meaning, and then attempted to reform municipal government to suit their specific vision. Drawing together a significant number of the writings on this subject and contributing his own primary research, Connolly explains the development of what came to be called "machine" or "boss" politics over the period from the end of the Civil War up to 1920."--Maureen A. Flanagan, Michigan State University



"An Elusive Unity is a beautifully written and artfully crafted treatment of a critical issue for American historians and citizens. James J. Connolly takes on a subject that several generations of historians have repeatedly evoked but seldom grappled with so directly: the ideological tensions between Republicanism or the Habermasian public sphere on one side and diversity, pluralism, and pragmatism on the other. Connolly situates these contrasting interpretations in the nineteenth-century city and thereby casts a clarifying light on all of American political development."--Mary P. Ryan, John Martin Vincent Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801441919
• ISBN 13: 9780801441912
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280