Were there more democratic political machines than GOP machines?

[Matty]

I seem to recall when I took American history in school that there would be discussion about machines, but they would tend to be focused on machines in the cities that usually were democratic machines, such as tammany hall.

I don't recall ever learning about republican machines.

Did they exist in as large numbers?

[kcguy]

I think Philadelphia had a Republican machine.  EDIT:  I think that either Nassau County or Suffolk County did too.

Plus, probably some historically Republican cities like Cincinnati, assuming Cincinnati ever had a machine.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I think Philadelphia had a Republican machine.  EDIT:  I think that either Nassau County or Suffolk County did too.

Plus, probably some historically Republican cities like Cincinnati, assuming Cincinnati ever had a machine.

Boy did Cincinnati have machine politics; from my understanding it was one of the most reviled of the urban machines from the viewpoint of the muckrakers and civil reformers. Boss Cox ruled Cincinnati with an iron fist from the mid 1870s to his death in 1916 and kept Cincinnati a Republican controlled city throughout his reign. Other than Cincinnati, Philadelphia's GOP apparatus was arguably the more dominant of the two party machines in the city up until the 1940/1950s. Chicago switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats until about the 1920s when the Democrats finally shut out the Republicans.


Generally speaking though, urban machines were largley Democratic affairs in the big cities because machines were usually designed to cater the most heavily towards the Democratic base in the North: immigrants. Republicans obviously had their own problems with corruption, but Republicans were also the party of progressive reformers, the middle class, and Anglo-descended nativists, all of which had their own reasons to despise the urban machines. They also didn't tend to pack as heavily into the cities in the North to the degree that Democrats did and were thus not in as much need for extensive urban patronage networks.

[darklordoftech]

I think Philadelphia had a Republican machine.  EDIT:  I think that either Nassau County or Suffolk County did too.

Plus, probably some historically Republican cities like Cincinnati, assuming Cincinnati ever had a machine.

Boy did Cincinnati have machine politics; from my understanding it was one of the most reviled of the urban machines from the viewpoint of the muckrakers and civil reformers. Boss Cox ruled Cincinnati with an iron fist from the mid 1870s to his death in 1916 and kept Cincinnati a Republican controlled city throughout his reign. Other than Cincinnati, Philadelphia's GOP apparatus was arguably the more dominant of the two party machines in the city up until the 1940/1950s. Chicago switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats until about the 1920s when the Democrats finally shut out the Republicans.


Generally speaking though, urban machines were largley Democratic affairs in the big cities because machines were usually designed to cater the most heavily towards the Democratic base in the North: immigrants. Republicans obviously had their own problems with corruption, but Republicans were also the party of progressive reformers, the middle class, and Anglo-descended nativists, all of which had their own reasons to despise the urban machines. They also didn't tend to pack as heavily into the cities in the North to the degree that Democrats did and were thus not in as much need for extensive urban patronage networks.

What ethinicities did Republican machines tend to attract?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Buffalo perhaps?

[RINO Tom]

I think Philadelphia had a Republican machine.  EDIT:  I think that either Nassau County or Suffolk County did too.

Plus, probably some historically Republican cities like Cincinnati, assuming Cincinnati ever had a machine.

Boy did Cincinnati have machine politics; from my understanding it was one of the most reviled of the urban machines from the viewpoint of the muckrakers and civil reformers. Boss Cox ruled Cincinnati with an iron fist from the mid 1870s to his death in 1916 and kept Cincinnati a Republican controlled city throughout his reign. Other than Cincinnati, Philadelphia's GOP apparatus was arguably the more dominant of the two party machines in the city up until the 1940/1950s. Chicago switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats until about the 1920s when the Democrats finally shut out the Republicans.


Generally speaking though, urban machines were largley Democratic affairs in the big cities because machines were usually designed to cater the most heavily towards the Democratic base in the North: immigrants. Republicans obviously had their own problems with corruption, but Republicans were also the party of progressive reformers, the middle class, and Anglo-descended nativists, all of which had their own reasons to despise the urban machines. They also didn't tend to pack as heavily into the cities in the North to the degree that Democrats did and were thus not in as much need for extensive urban patronage networks.

What ethinicities did Republican machines tend to attract?

I'd assume machines tended to "attract" a lot of ethnicities (or at least whatever ones were present in a given city), simply because they became so dominant.  The old, "vote Democrat if you want your street plowed" kind of thing.

Per the OP, I remember reading that Pittsburgh had a very strong GOP machine at one point.  I think the Great Depression/Black voters feeling an even more fleeting sentimentality for the GOP really did whatever Republican machines were left in.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Republican machines were typically composed of people who had a reason to hate the Democrats. Its ironic that Republicans were founded out of the collapse of the Whigs, but found themselves straddling a very unstable coalition that spanned class and racial lines. The only issue that really united them was support for tariffs.

Yankee Whites and German protestants formed the basic core of any Republican coalition in the late 19th century. African Americans where they could vote were as well. After that came any group that the Democrats alienated by catering so heavily towards the Irish, leaving other groups out to dry on patronage jobs and such.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Local governments and city government are Democratic machines.

The GOP has had a monopoly, so called machine on the Federal Govt since 1994. In 2018, it's about to change

[David T]

Philadelphia had a strong Republican machine, which controlled the mayoralty until Joseph Clark was elected mayor in 1951.

Until the 1930's, Chicago had strong Republican as well as Democratic machines. The latter usually won, but not always--e.g., "Big Bill" Thompson's two GOP administrations (1915-1923 and 1927-1931).

Pittsburgh also had a strong Republican machine in the days before David L. Lawrence.

One key to Republican success in pre-New Deal big cities is that the party had a broader ethnic base than is often realized.  For example, they sought with some success to appeal to Italian-American voters who resented Irish-American domination of the local Democratic machines.  African Americans were also mostly Republican in those days, and were a fairly significant group in many northern cities even before the World War I Great Migration.

[David T]

There were sf course also Republican suburban machines.  Delaware County, PA (in the Philadelphia suburbs) was long dominated by a Republican machine called the War Board.  In Nassau County, New York, Joseph Margiotta's Republican machine was dominant.  "Residents would often call a local Republican committeeman to deal with issues like broken streetlights instead of calling a county agency" according to the Wikipedia article on Margiotta.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Atlantic City had a Republican political machine, as seen on Boardwalk Empire.

While the TV show took some huge artistic licenses, the existence of the political machine in the city was based on facts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucky_Johnson%27s_Organization

[David T]

Recommended reading:  Peter McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia:  The Emergence of the Republican Machine, 1867–1933 (University Park: Penn State Press, 1993).   Lincoln Steffens wrote in 1903:  "All our municipal governments are more or less bad.  Philadelphia is simply the most corrupt and the most contented."

[David T]

Also see the Wikipedia article on William Flinn:  "Along with Christopher Magee (1848–1901), his political partner, the two ran the Republican Party machine that controlled the city [Pittsburgh] for the final twenty years of the 19th century."

[David T]

In the early 20th century, there was a powerful Republican machine in Cinciannti led by George B. Cox.  See

Miiller, Zane L. (1968). Boss Cox's Cincinnati: urban politics in the progressive era. Oxford University Press, LC #68-29722. Reprint: Ohio State University Press (2000)

Boyden, H.P. "Cincinnati's Battle With the Boss System", New York Times, August 24, 1903

Both cited in the Wikipedia article on Cox.

[darklordoftech]

I know that Aaron Burr started Tamneny Hall, so I wonder: How did Hamilton and Jefferson feel about political machines?