Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840-1985 (California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy)

California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy

by Steven P. Erie

Unprecedented in its scope, Rainbow's End provides a bold new analysis of the emergence, growth, and decline of six classic Irish-American political machines in New York, Jersey City, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Albany. Combining the approaches of political economy and historical sociology, Erie examines a wide range of issues, including the relationship between city and state politics, the manner in which machines shaped ethnic and working-class politics, and the reasons why centralized party organizations failed to emerge in Boston and Philadelphia despite their large Irish populations. The book ends with a thorough discussion of the significance of machine politics for today's urban minorities.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

the late 19th through mid 20th centuries crafted successful ways of staying in power, but actual material benefits turned out to be more limited than usually thought. He looks at cities with strong Irish political machines: Albany, Chicago, Jersey City, New York, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, while noting that very Irish cities in Boston and Philadelphia never developed centralized Irish-run political machines, instead either serving Yankee machines or never successfully able to entrench themselves. He argued that, despite the usual arguments about Irish culture lending itself to ethnic loyalties, clubhouse camaraderie, and Catholic culture, it had more to do with city-state politics, where machines developed in places with friendly state governments than places with hostile state governments, since machines operate best if they can blank their opponents out of power. Erie argued that “supply-side” politics meant that limited patronage jobs, services, and contracts were hoarded for the Irish, which grounded them into blue collar city jobs that actually held most of the Irish working class in the working class as opposed to the common view of boosting them into the middle class. Irish machines failed to foster rainbow coalitions for the most part, hoarding resources as much as they could.

Erie looks to four periods: 1840-96, in which the first Irish machines arose, often taking over older Yankee machines (such as Tamany Hall) in a wave of naturalization campaigns to solidify their base. 1896-1928 saw the Irish machines systematically restrict access to jobs, services, and contracts to other ethnic groups, particularly Italians and Jews. 1928-50 saw the fall of some machines as other excluded ethnicities banded together to bring them down, or solidified them as they gained New Deal federal funding to bring in those challengers. 1950-85 saw a move towards welfare, low taxes, and home owner services, at the same time black coalitions brought many of the machines down, coupled with their base moving to the suburbs, as Reagan cut services to cities.

Key Themes and Concepts:

-Machines had common tendencies: single party boss, city-wide power, staying power, and supply-side of patronage jobs, services, and contracts.

-Machines did best where they could forge alliances with state and federal authorities, and failed to solidify when there was hostility between urban and state.

[Dylan Groves · Rating 3 out of 5]

its not just irish being irish, its also about friends in state and federal governments. also an insider-outsider exchange game.