Boss Tweed And Immigrants
Among its more notorious figures were william boss tweed.
Boss tweed and immigrants. Boss tweed is the legendary corrupt new york political boss who taught the irish what they needed to know about grabbing political power. At the height of his influence tweed was the third largest landowner in new york city a director of the erie railroad a director of the tenth national bank a director of the new york printing company proprietor of the metropolitan hotel a significant stockholder in iron mines and gas companies. Boss tweed was born william magear tweed on april 3 1823 on the lower east side of manhattan. A recent book chronicled that he was no more corrupt than.
Start studying immigration tenements ghettos boss tweed and industries. Boss tweed in full william magear tweed erroneously called william marcy tweed born april 3 1823 new york new york u s died april 12 1878 new york american politician who with his tweed ring cronies systematically plundered new york city of sums estimated at between 30 million and 200 million. Van wyck was one of a long list of scoundrels associated with the political machine known as tammany hall which influenced and at times dominated new york s democratic party for more than 100 years. Tammany hall s power was largely based on the support of irish catholic immigrants and following the orange riots of 1871 in which irish protestant immigrants clashed with catholics.
For example newly arrived italian immigrants were completely left out of tammany s interests. A neighborhood that was established by immigrants and was the traditional starting point for all new arrivals. Tweed never revealed his ethnic background probably because it served his political interests to keep it ambiguous. Despite their efforts they were largely unsuccessful until the election of 1871 when the public began to turn on boss tweed and the tammany hall machine.
Tweed married mary jane skaden in 1844 and in 1848 he organized a volunteer fire company. Learn vocabulary terms and more with flashcards games and other study tools. Wikimedia commons a cartoon by thomas nast. From around 1860 until 1872 boss tweed ran a political machine that had control of new york city s government.
William tweed was born in 1823 on the lower east side of new york city.