Clout City
University of Chicago Press (Verlag)
978-0-226-73370-8 (ISBN)
In politics, clout is essential. Too often, it determines whether insider access is granted or denied, favors are given or withheld, and payoffs are made or received. But Chicago clout, as we know it today, is even more potent than that—it’s the absolute currency of a social, cultural, and political order that is self-reinforcing and self-dealing. Or, at least, it was.
In Clout City, award-winning historian Dominic A. Pacyga reveals how cultural, ethnic, and religious forces created this distinctive system—and ultimately led to its collapse. Tracing clout’s origins in the Irish Catholic–dominated working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport, shaped by De La Salle Institute and home to the legendary Daley family, Pacyga shows how communal ties can be a force for good and also the deepest wellspring of corruption. He maps Chicago’s unique politics to its remarkable history, from the Great Fire of 1871 through its rise and decline as an industrial center to its emergence as a global city in the early twenty-first century. With deep research and firsthand experience from a lifetime in the city, Pacyga argues that Chicago’s politics is understood best as a mixture of cultural and religious influences and more worldly pursuits, exploring how both Jewish and Catholic communalism played central roles in the creation and sustenance of the Chicago machine.
Chicago’s politics today aren’t as defined by its distinctive brand of clout. But they are shaped by clout’s decline and the ghost of the machine. Pacyga’s tour of the city’s multilayered past is an indispensable guide to its present and future.
Dominic A. Pacyga is professor emeritus of history in the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago, also from the University of Chicago Press.
Introduction: The Sacred and the Profane in Chicago’s Politics
Chapter One: The Great Fire, an Assassination, and the Seeds of Change The Day Everything Changed—“Our Carter”
Chapter Two: Bridgeport and De La Salle Institute: The Birth of the Machine Bridgeport—The River and the Bridgeport Stench—Rum, Riot, and Romanism—The Working-Class Response—The Bridgeport Way—De La Salle Institute: The Cradle of Clout—Communal Catholicism and Clout—Patron Saints and Patronage
Chapter Three: The Communal Web The Priest, the Minister, and the Rabbi—The Saloon—The Ward Boss—The Gangster
Chapter Four: The Machine’s Growing Pains Roger Sullivan and John Hopkins—Demographic and Technological Change—Young Carter—Patronage and the Traction Issue
Chapter Five: A Republican Protestant Proto-Machine William Hale Thompson—The Blond Boss—Mayor Thompson—A Democratic Reformer—The Return of Big Bill—Thompson’s Last Hurrah! 1927–1931
Chapter Six: Bohemian Rhapsody: A New Ethnic Alignment Bohemia in Chicago—Anton Cermak: The Early Years—The United Societies for Local Self-Government—The Growth of a Communal Political Machine—Cermak Rising—Mayor Cermak
Chapter Seven: Bridgeport’s Victory Frank J. Corr: A De La Salle Graduate—Mayor Edward Kelly: A South Side Irish Catholic Mayor—Kelly, the Policy Wheel, and the Growth of the Democratic Machine—Dawson, Clout, Community, and the Emerging Black Democratic Majority—Labor, Ethnic, Class Conflict and the Kelly-Nash Machine—Wartime Mayor
Chapter Eight: Clout and Communalism Triumphant Kennelly: A Bridgeport Reformer—A True Bridgeport Mayor—The Church Triumphant—A Battle Between the Sacred and Profane
Chapter Nine: Fragmentation: Clout and Communalism in Decline The Racial Divide: The Sacred and Profane in Conflict—Racial Clashes—The Chicago Freedom Movement—Coming Apart: The Democratic Convention—Dark Days
Chapter Ten: Changing Times Let the Chaos Begin!—The Democratic Civil War Begins: Bilandic, Byrne, Daley, and Washington—The Church Dispirited
Chapter Eleven: Not Your Father’s Machine Restoration?—A New Machine?—A Neoliberal Machine—The Daley Family—The End of the Daley Era
Chapter Twelve: After the Daleys Emanuel Takes Control—The Sacred vs. the Profane in Englewood—A Second Emanuel Administration—The Last Gasp of the Old Machine: Burke and Madigan—A Progressive Interlude: The Lightfoot and Johnson Administrations—Conclusion: The End of the Communal Machine
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 11.09.2025 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 35 halftones |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 708 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-226-73370-X / 022673370X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-226-73370-8 / 9780226733708 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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