In chapter 5, “The Empire City,” Reitano goes over the social, political, and labor reform movements of the Gilded age. According to Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, a rags to riches tory, New York City was depicted as the place of opportunities. However, this was not so much the case. The Empire City was home of the richest people in the nation, and the center of trade, finance, and industry, so incoming immigrants saw it as a land where they could rise in status. However, with the mass political corruption going on they came to realize that the riches of the city didn’t’ work so much in their favor. With the insane amount of wealth displayed on the upper east side, there was also insane amount of poverty on the lower east side. Late 19th century New York was named The Gilded Age by Mark Twain because of the display of wealth that covered the time period in a later of gold, even though in reality there was immense poverty and wretchedness. Social Darwinism was the main social contract, and it led to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
The head of it all was William M. Tweed, the leader of New York’s largest political circle, Tammany Hall. Tweed was never mayor himself, but he helped nominees of the Democratic Party and Tammany Hall get their positions. Through his corrupt methods Tweed was able to appoint his choice of mayors, senators, congressmen, commissioners, etc. So essentially, he got to rule both the city and the state. And with businessmen in his favor, he was able to provide work for his supporters and earn money on his own. When Tweed’s bookkeeper died, the new one copied all of the Ring’s account books and exposed them, showing how Tweed was able to spend so much of the government’s money. Tweed had companies over charge the government for services for governmental projects, and then he would have them return 65% of the fee back to the Ring.
Many came onto Tweed and called him out in his corruption after a series of riots swept NYC. Tweed would give the immigrants money and services in order for them to vote Tammany, but he soon saw that he couldn’t control the growing working class with all the riots that were going on such as the 1871 Orange Riot. In 1870 during Boyne day, the Protestant Irish celebrated their Protestant Prince William of Orange defeating the Catholic King in the Battle of the Boyne. The Catholic Irish were offended and it all resulted in a bloody fight. The Protestant blamed Tweed. The following year, Tweed tried to stop it all from happening by bringing in policemen and militia. However, even more violence resulted and the riot got called, “the Tammany Riot.” Tammany went under investigation especially after the account books were exposed and Andrew Haswell Green along with Samuel J. Tilden were the lawyers who were able to get enough evidence to arrest Tweed. Tweed ended up dying in jail, in 1878 at the age of 55. Tweed’s exposure showed Americans that these Gilded Age bosses were corrupt individuals who were demoting democracy.
With the exposure of political corruption there was also an exposure of the level of poverty in New York City. The person who played the biggest role in it was Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark who was originally a police reporter for the New York Tribune when he visited the Five Points and decided to take pictures of the wretched conditions these people lived in. These pictures were published in his book How the Other Half Lives in 1890. The book provoked social reform by exposing the inequality that the poor faced. It showed that it wasn’t just prostitutes and criminals that lived in these areas, that there were hardworking men and women, and innocent young children that had to live in these horrible conditions. In 1894, William Strong was elected as mayor and was able to start some reform campaigns to improve living conditions in the slums, by building public baths and setting up sanitation systems. Riis contributed a big deal in the effort to build parks in the slums so that children had a clean place to play. Another major reform issue was education for the children. In 1900, schools in the state were desegregated, and by 1901, all kids under twelve were required to go to school.
Another issue that arose was women’s rights in these areas. Josephine Lowell who was devoted to charity changed her views from social Darwinism to seeing that it wasn’t the people’s fault that they were poor, it was the conditions they had to face that were inhumane. Lowell focused mainly on women’s leadership, she became the president of New York City’s Consumer League in 1891, and had upper class women boycott stores which treated their female workers unfairly. In 1896 they got New York to set a minimum standard for working conditions. There was an increase in settlement houses which offered meals, free kindergarten, health clinics, and language classes to immigrants. Eventually Riis called New York, “the most charitable city in the world.”
Labor reform and unionization was another rising concern of the gilded age. Workers realized they had to group together, find power in their masses, in order to get what they wanted done concerning their working conditions. One of the main organizers which came out of the area was Samuel Gompers. Gompers realized the power of striking and he formed the Cigarmakers’ Union in 1877 to strike for better for better conditions for cigar factory workers. Unfortunately, the union didn’t have much success and taught Gompers the importance in having economic stability before striking. After, Gompers was a leader in the Central Labor Union (CLU). The CLU was a collaboration of twelve unions including variety of workers. The CLU learned the power of state was too strong. The state was able to send police to brutally attack arrest picketers and boycotters. The next step the CLU took was politics. They nominated Henry George to run for mayor, and while George didn’t win due to Tammany’s backing of Abram Hewitt he was able to win a reasonable amount of votes (1/3 of the total votes) which was surprising. It made politicians that labor was an important topic of discussion that future candidates couldn’t ignore.
By 1886, Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL was the nation’s most important labor organization, but organizing strikes was still a struggle. In 1895, the Brooklyn Trolley workers decided to strike against wage cuts. But the combined efforts of scabs and the military and their overcome hunger and cold forced the strikers to quit. Even young kids participated in union organization. One of the most common jobs for young boys was selling newspapers in the streets. They were able to successfully strike with the backing of the community and the adults. These kids proved that the children shape future of the state.
