Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865 (review)

356CIVIL WAR HISTORY examine the politics of expansion under the guidance of a master of the field. Lawrence S. Kaplan Kent State University Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865. By Jerome Mushkat. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1971. Pp. xii, 476. $15.00.) In the Forward to his book, Professor Jerome Mushkat leads readers to expect an analytical treatment of the changing structure and functioning of Tammany during its first three-quarters of a century. The body of Tammany: The Evolution of a Political Machine, 1789-1865 disappoints on this important count, however, for it provides instead an overlong, overdetailed chronological narrative of personal and factional struggles within Tammany and of the political interrelationships among New York City, New York State, and the United States. As a consequence, the book's framework all but conceals its few noteworthy analytical points. One regrets this, for Mushkat obviously labored hard on the study. A bibliographical essay of twenty-five pages and fifty-four pages given over to 937 citations attest to his diligence. Mushkat, referring to the work of Moisei Ostrogorski, Robert Merton , and Edward Banfield and James Wilson (not "Watson" [p. 386]), notes the "functional theory of machine politics" but—passing references to changes in the size and composition of New York City's population and to urban problems such as housing, sanitation, water supply, police and fire protection notwithstanding—he fails to test systematically in one particular historical setting any theory of urban politics. One is struck by the sharp conceptual and organizational differences between this book and Seymour Mandelbaum's Boss Tweed's New York, which covers the immediately following period. Mushkat devotes insufficient space to the "fragmented, disorganized community" that was New York City during the 1840's and 1850's. How did Tammany politicians seek to deal with the myriad problems that faced New York City? Which urban districts and groups would have benefited from their programs? On which districts and groups would the financial burdens of such projects have fallen? What was the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of Tammany's leadership in various periods? (Apart from references to the " 'middle class' or " 'middling classes,' " both undefined, during the early national period and a table on the occupational status of Tammany Society recruits, 1797-1801, Mushkat offers little on this point, which he claims to have discussed.) Which groups opposed Tammany's leadership? What were their alternative plans for the growing and changing city? Mushkat could have rendered an invaluable service by dealing with such questions. Like other political organizations, Tammany depended on popular support for its success. Which New York City districts provided its can- book reviews357 didates with steady support? Which did not? Where were shifts likely to occur? Only once, and then in passing (p. 454, note 20), does Mushkat deal specifically with ward-level ethnic voting patterns. He even introduces the Know-Nothing party without referring to the massive influx of Irish and German Catholic immigrants that began in 1847 and touched off the politically significant nativist and temperance agitation of the 1850's. If, then, one expects an analysis of the genesis of the urban political machine in New York City, Tammany is a disappointing book. If, on the other hand, one wishes a detailed account of New York City politics in its state and national settings, Mushkat's work provides just such coverage. Samuel T. McSeveney Brooklyn College From the Fresh Water Navy. 1861-1864: The Letters of Acting Master 's Mate Henry R. Browne and Acting Ensign Symmes E. Browne. Edited by John D. Milligan. (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1970. Pp. xx, 327. $13.50. ) Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861-1865. Compiled by the Naval History Division, Navy Department. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1971. Pp. 1122. $9.75.) The two young men who wrote the letters were born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Henry, the elder, enlisted as an ordinary seaman and soon became an acting master's mate. Soon after his enlistment, on November 1, 1861, Henry urged his younger brother, Symmes, to follow his example . Apparently, Commander John A. Winslow, who was later to command the Kearsarge and sink the Alabama, visited Cincinnati in October, 1861, and...