Professor Brands, I just used two of these quotes with my APUSH class last week when talking about the rise of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed during and after the Civil War. Glad to have a picture of Mr. Plunkitt-he has less hair than I imagined. I said a similar thing that you did-we may hate the corruption of those machines, but they DID get things done and provided an avenue for the integration of all the immigrants flowing into the cities during the late 1800s. Practical politics indeed. (And I type this as my school system in Delaware is closed because of 3-4 inches of snow, snow that could be reasonably easily removed if the government was more practical and less "performative." But I'm teaching on-line because yeah, that works well.)
Professor Brands, I just used two of these quotes with my APUSH class last week when talking about the rise of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed during and after the Civil War. Glad to have a picture of Mr. Plunkitt-he has less hair than I imagined. I said a similar thing that you did-we may hate the corruption of those machines, but they DID get things done and provided an avenue for the integration of all the immigrants flowing into the cities during the late 1800s. Practical politics indeed. (And I type this as my school system in Delaware is closed because of 3-4 inches of snow, snow that could be reasonably easily removed if the government was more practical and less "performative." But I'm teaching on-line because yeah, that works well.)
Glad to hear about Plunkitt. Maybe not about the snow.