ABSTRACT
The lines between some bosses and reformers blurred in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cities, when these bosses saw political advantages in supporting civic reforms, public ownership of utilities, and labour legislation that promised to help their constituents. The bosses who ran successful city machines cultivated the loyalty of smaller machines organized at the levels of ward, precinct, and even block. Civic reformers contended that responsible local government was no place for party politicians; a city did not need a Democrat or Republican to build a school or lay a sewer. Urban political machines were a response to the ineffectiveness of earlier governmental forms in responding to the challenges of urban growth. American socialists vigorously denounced urban inequality, poverty, and lack of welfare services, proposing their own remedies, which ranged from expanded public responsibility to hire the unemployed to municipal ownership of utilities and transportation.
