1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910524849503321

Autore

Teaford Jon C

Titolo

The Unheralded Triumph : City Government in America, 1870-1900 / / Jon C. Teaford

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Johns Hopkins University Press

ISBN

1-4214-3524-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (1 online resource (xi, 365 pages) :) : tables

Collana

Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science ; ; 102d ser. (1984)

Disciplina

352/.00724/0973

Soggetti

Gemeindeverwaltung

Stadtverwaltung

Municipal services

Municipal government

Municipal services - United States - History - 19th century

Municipal government - United States - History - 19th century

United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sommario/riassunto

In 1888 the British observer James Bryce declared "the government of cities" to be "the one conspicuous failure of the United States." During the following two decades, urban reformers would repeat Bryce's words with ritualistic regularity; nearly a century later, his comment continues to set the tone for most assessments of nineteenth-century city government. Yet by the end of the century, as Jon Teaford argues in this important reappraisal, American cities boasted the most abundant water supplies, brightest street lights, grandest parks, largest public libraries, and most efficient systems of transportation in the world. Far from being a "conspicuous failure," municipal governments of the late nineteenth century had successfully met challenges of an



unprecedented magnitude and complexity. The Unheralded Triumph draws together the histories of the most important cities of the Gilded Age--especially New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Baltimore--to chart the expansion of services and the improvement of urban environments between 1870 and 1900. It examines the ways in which cities were transformed, in a period of rapid population growth and increased social unrest, into places suitable for living. Teaford demonstrates how, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, municipal governments adapted to societal change with the aid of generally compliant state legislatures. These were the years that saw the professionalization of city government and the political accommodation of the diverse ethnic, economic, and social elements that compose America's heterogeneous urban society. Teaford acknowledges that the expansion of urban services dangerously strained city budgets and that graft, embezzlement, overcharging, and payroll-padding presented serious problems throughout the period. The dissatisfaction with city governments arose, however, not so much from any failure to achieve concrete results as from the conflicts between those hostile groups accommodated within the newly created system: "For persons of principle and gentlemen who prized honor, it seemed a failure yet American municipal government left as a legacy such achievements as Central Park, the new Croton Aqueduct, and the Brooklyn Bridge, monuments of public enterprise that offered new pleasures and conveniences for millions of urban citizens."