Political machine in the context of Patronage

The Progressive Era (1890s–1920s) was a period in the United States characterized by multiple social and political reform efforts. Reformers during this era, known as Progressives, sought to address issues they associated with rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption, as well as the loss of competition in the market due to trusts and monopolies, and the great concentration of wealth among a very few individuals. Reformers expressed concern about slums, poverty, and labor conditions. Multiple overlapping movements pursued social, political, and economic reforms by advocating changes in governance, scientific methods, and professionalism; regulating business; protecting the natural environment; and seeking to improve urban living and working conditions.

Corrupt and undemocratic political machines and their bosses were a major target of progressive reformers. To revitalize democracy, progressives established direct primary elections, direct election of senators (rather than by state legislatures), initiatives and referendums, and women's suffrage which was promoted to advance democracy and bring the presumed moral influence of women into politics. For many progressives, prohibition of alcoholic beverages was key to eliminating corruption in politics as well as improving social conditions.

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and wealthy Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and won both the White House and both congressional houses with a mandate, surviving the splits that created two splinter parties.

The coalition made the Democratic Party the majority party nationally for decades. From 1933 to 1968, Democrats only lost control of the White House when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 and was then reelected in 1956 due to his broad popularity. The Democrats typically controlled both Houses of Congress before the 1990s. The coalition began to weaken with the collapse of big city machines after 1940, the steady decline of labor unions after 1970, the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, the turn of northern white ethnics and southern whites toward conservatism on racial issues, and the rise of neoliberalism under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with its opposition to regulation.

Patrimonialism is a form of governance in which the ruler governs on the basis of personal loyalties which are derived from patron-client relations, personal allegiances, kin ties and combinations thereof. Patrimonialism is closely related to corruption, opportunism and machine politics. It can contribute to underdevelopment and weak state capacity.

In contrast to many other systems of governance, the ruler does not derive legitimacy from personal charisma or a sense of mission, but primarily through the ability to dole out rewards and punishments. Initially coined by Max Weber, patrimonialism stands in contrast to rational-legal bureaucracies, as there is no objective of efficiency in public administration and government staff are not advanced based on merit, experience and training.

The city of Philadelphia was founded and incorporated in 1682 by William Penn in the English Crown Province of Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Before then, the area was inhabited by the Lenape people. Philadelphia quickly grew into an important colonial city and during the American Revolution was the site of the First and Second Continental Congresses. After the Revolution, the city was chosen to be the temporary capital of the United States. At the beginning of the 19th century, the federal and state governments left Philadelphia, but the city remained the cultural and financial center of the country. Philadelphia became one of the first U.S. industrial centers and the city contained a variety of industries, the largest being textiles.

After the American Civil War Philadelphia's government was controlled by a Republican political machine and by the beginning of the 20th century Philadelphia was described as "corrupt and contented." Various reform efforts slowly changed city government with the most significant in 1950 where a new city charter strengthened the position of mayor and weakened the Philadelphia City Council. At the same time Philadelphia moved its supports from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, which has since created a strong Democratic organization.

The Truman Committee, formally known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, was a United States Congressional investigative body, headed by Senator Harry S. Truman. The bipartisan special committee was formed in March 1941 to find and correct problems in US war production with waste, inefficiency, and war profiteering. The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government: an initial budget of $15,000 was expanded over three years to $360,000 to save an estimated $10–15 billion in military spending and thousands of lives of U.S. servicemen. For comparison, the entire cost of the simultaneous Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bombs, was $2 billion. Chairing the committee helped Truman make a name for himself beyond his political machine origins and was a major factor in the decision to nominate him as vice president, which would propel him to the presidency after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Truman stepped down from leadership of the committee in August 1944 to concentrate on running for vice president in that year's presidential election. From 1941 until its official end, in 1948, the committee held 432 public hearings, listened to 1,798 witnesses and published almost 2,000 pages of reports. Every committee report was unanimous, with bipartisan support.

William Magear "Boss" Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878) was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party's political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City and State.

At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in New York City, a director of the Erie Railroad, a director of the Tenth National Bank, a director of the New-York Printing Company, the proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel, a significant stockholder in iron mines and gas companies, a board member of the Harlem Gas Light Company, a board member of the Third Avenue Railway Company, a board member of the Brooklyn Bridge Company, and the president of the Guardian Savings Bank.

Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of New York from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1923 to 1928. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's presidential nominee in the 1928 presidential election, losing to Republican nominee Herbert Hoover in a landslide.

The son of an Irish American mother and a Civil War–veteran Italian American father, Smith was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, near the Brooklyn Bridge. He resided in that neighborhood for his entire life. Although Smith remained personally untarnished by corruption, he—like many other New York Democrats—was linked to the notorious Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City politics during his era. Smith served in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1915 and was the speaker of the Assembly in 1913. He also served as the sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He was first elected governor in 1918, lost his 1920 bid for re-election, and was elected again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. Smith was the foremost urban leader of the efficiency movement in the U.S. and was noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as governor.

The Albany Regency was a group of politicians who controlled the New York state government between 1822 and 1838. Originally called the "Holy Alliance", it was instituted by Martin Van Buren, who remained its dominating spirit for many years. The group was among the first American political machines. In the beginning they were the leading figures of the Bucktails faction of the Democratic-Republican Party, later the Jacksonian Democrats, and finally the Hunkers faction of the Democratic Party.

The "Half-Breeds" were a political faction of the United States Republican Party in the late 19th century.

The Half-Breeds were a comparably moderate group, and were the opponents of the Stalwarts, the other main faction of the Republican Party. The main issue that divided the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds was political patronage. The Stalwarts were in favor of political machines and spoils system-style patronage, while the Half-Breeds, later led by Maine senator James G. Blaine, were in favor of civil service reform and a merit system. The epithet "Half-Breed" was invented in derision by the Stalwarts to denote those whom they perceived as being "only half Republican".

The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the United States are occasionally called "muckrakers" informally.

The muckrakers played a highly visible role during the Progressive Era. Muckraking magazines—notably McClure's, of the publisher S. S. McClure—took on corporate monopolies and political machines, while trying to raise public awareness and anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, prostitution, and child labor. Most of the muckrakers wrote nonfiction, but fictional exposés often had a major impact, too, such as those by Upton Sinclair.

In American politics, a conservative Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party with more conservative views than most Democrats. Traditionally, conservative Democrats have been elected to office from the Southern states, rural areas, and the Great Plains. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 14% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters identify as conservative or very conservative, 38% identify as moderate, and 47% identify as liberal or very liberal.

Before 1964, the Democratic Party and Republican Party each had influential liberal, moderate, and conservative wings. During this period, conservative Democrats formed the Democratic half of the conservative coalition. After 1964, the Democratic Party retained its conservative wing through the 1970s with the help of urban machine politics. In the 21st century, the number of conservative Democrats decreased as the party moved leftward.

Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local political machine of the Democratic Party and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York state politics. Though initially an independent social organization, at its peak, Tammany Hall became synonymous with the New York County Democratic Party.

At its founding, the Society of St. Tammany was a social fraternal organization and one branch of a network of Tammany societies throughout the new United States of America. Politically, its members were Jeffersonian republicans opposed to the Manhattan aristocracy. As the immigrant population of New York grew, Tammany Hall became an important social and political organization, for Irish Catholic immigrants in particular. Following the 1854 mayoral election and the resulting mayoralty of Fernando Wood, Tammany Hall controlled Democratic Party nominations and political patronage in Manhattan for over a century through its organized network of loyal, well-rewarded, and largely Irish Catholic district and precinct leaders. It also gained support from the New York City business community for its efficient, if corrupt, solutions to problems.

The Tweed Courthouse (also known as the Old New York County Courthouse) is a historic courthouse building at 52 Chambers Street in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. It was built in the Italianate style with Romanesque Revival interiors. William M. "Boss" Tweed – the corrupt leader of Tammany Hall, a political machine that controlled the New York state and city governments when the courthouse was built – oversaw the building's erection. The Tweed Courthouse served as a judicial building for New York County, a county of New York state coextensive with the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the second-oldest city government building in the borough, after City Hall.

The structure comprises pavilions to the east and west of a central section, as well as a rear wing to the south. Architect John Kellum and political appointee Thomas Little designed the first portion of the building, which was constructed from 1861 to 1872. Construction was interrupted in 1871 when Kellum died and the corruption involved in the building's construction was exposed to the public. The project was completed by architect Leopold Eidlitz, who added the rear wing and finished the interior between 1877 and 1881.

The First Brazilian Republic, also referred to as the Old Republic (Portuguese: República Velha, Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁeˈpublikɐ ˈvɛʎɐ]), officially the Republic of the United States of Brazil, was the Brazilian state in the period from 1889 to 1930. The Old Republic began with the coup d'état that deposed emperor Pedro II in 1889, and ended with the Revolution of 1930 that installed Getúlio Vargas as a new president. During the First Republic, the country's presidency was dominated by the most powerful states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Because of the power of these two states, based on the production of coffee and dairy, respectively, the Old Republic's political system has been described as "milk coffee politics". At local level, the country was dominated by a form of machine politics known as coronelism, in which the political and economic spheres were centered around local bosses, who controlled elections and would often conduct electoral fraud.

The country was also marked by a series of rebellions and revolutions against the ruling oligarchies, which culminated into the Revolution of 1930, when the Liberal Alliance, a force of urban middle-class, planters from outside São Paulo and military reformists composed mostly by junior officers (known as Tenetism), deposed ruling president Washington Luís (representative of the São Paulo oligarchies) and led to the ascension of Getúlio Vargas as president, heralding the start of the Vargas Era.