Evaluating Plunkitt’s “Solemn Contract”: Working-Class Perspectives on Tammany Hall and Upper-Class Reform Politics, 1870–1924

Abstract This article examines working-class views of the Tammany Hall political machine and its main opposition parties between 1870 and 1924. Previous historians, relying mostly on accounts from machine politicians like George Washington Plunkitt, have tended to argue that Tammany Hall enjoyed popularity among working-class New Yorkers in this period because it offered them effective forms of material aid through the practice of job patronage and informal acts of charity. This article complicates that assertion by examining accounts and voting records from working-class individuals themselves. It finds that, while patronage and informal charity were indeed popular with working-class voters in this period, they were often dissatisfied with most other aspects of Tammany Hall governance, such as its reputation for corruption or inefficient delivering of city services. Working-class voters only continued to vote for Tammany Hall because the machine’s political rivals were generally led by wealthy reformers who repeatedly and openly disparaged members of the working class in their speeches and supported policies that were even more unpopular with working-class voters than Tammany Hall’s governance.