1825, insured the commercial supremacy of New York among
American cities. The years immediately following the close of
the second war with Great Britain also mark the beginning of a
rapid increase in the number of European immigrants, and this
stream of immigration, rising to a flood in the fourth decade and
continuing high throughout the century, has been a dominant
force in determining the city’s social and political conditions.
Although the city was a stronghold of the Federalists at the time
the National government was organized, the Democrats, owing
to the dexterous management of Aaron Burr, were victorious
in the elections of 1800 and 1801, and the city has continued to
be normally Democratic owing largely to the activities of the
Tammany Society or Tammany Hall (q.v.). This organization,
founded in 1789, early espoused the cause of the unfranchised
inhabitants, attended to the wants of the immigrants in various
ways, led the movement for universal manhood suffrage and the
election of city officers, and, after the office of mayor became
elective (1834) and the last property qualifications for city voters
were removed (1842), continued strong by reason of the support
of the great mass of foreign-born citizens. Fraud and corruption
were resorted to by Tammany, and offices were used for the good
of the organization rather than for the good of the city. Socially,
the immigrants deluged the city with vice, crime, misery and
pauperism. The unsanitary conditions had already caused
epidemics of yellow fever in 1795, 1798, 1822 and 1823, and the
city was visited in 1832, 1834 and 1849 with epidemics of cholera
in which several thousand lives were lost. These scourges
together with a fire in 1835, which destroyed the East Side below
Wall Street, hastened the construction of works for getting a
supply of water from the Croton river. The immigrants represented
various nationalities and religious sects, and from 1830
to 1871 the city was frequently disturbed by riots arising usually
from national or religious antipathy. During the first mayoralty
election (1834) there was rioting; and there were an abolitionist
riot in the same year, a flour riot during the financial panic of
1837, and labour riots from time to time which were suppressed
by the police. In 1857 the state legislature established a state
or “metropolitan” police for the better protection of the city.
The mayor, Fernando Wood, contending that the act was
unconstitutional, resisted with the old municipal police, and
another serious riot had begun when the Seventh Regiment
of state troops compelled obedience; later, too, the court of
appeals decided against the mayor.
Wood was still mayor at the outbreak of the Civil War, and in January 1861 he proposed to the Common Council that Manhattan Island, Long Island and Staten Island should secede and constitute a free city, to be named Tri-Insula. The Council approved. But when, in April, the city had been aroused by the bombardment of Fort Sumter the majority of the Democrats joined with the Republicans in discarding the proposal and in support of the Union. The native-born and loyal citizens joined the Union army in such large numbers that the city was left with inadequate protection from such of its inhabitants as had often constituted the mob. In this state of affairs the drafting of men for the army was begun in July 1863 in conformity with an act of Congress which exempted from its operation all who should make a money payment of $300. The New York proletariat and unscrupulous politicians complained that the measure was peculiarly oppressive to the poor, and the rioting with which it was resisted was protracted and bloody. The rioting began the 13th of July and continued for nearly five days. More than fifty buildings were burned. The mob was especially furious against negroes, a number of whom were hanged or beaten to death. The police fought bravely but were unequal to the emergency, and order was restored only after several regiments had returned to the city and had killed at least 500 of the rioters. In 1871 Irish Catholics threatened to prevent the Orangemen from parading the streets on the anniversary of the Battle of Boyne (12th of July). The superintendent of police also issued an order on the preceding day prohibiting the parade. Public opinion, however, was so strong in favour of the Orangemen that the order was revoked, and five regiments of militia were called out to protect the parade before it started; at the first assault the mob was scattered by a volley which killed 51 persons. The militia suffered a loss of three killed and several wounded.
The character of the population did not improve speedily, for while immigrants were coming in great numbers a large portion of the saving middle class was removing to the suburbs; and although Tammany Hall was discredited during the Civil War, it gained control of the state as well as the city government soon after the war. William M. Tweed, its ruler, organized the “Tweed Ring” which was plundering the city on a gigantic scale, when in 1871 its operations were exposed by the New York Times. The thefts of the “Ring” amounted to many millions of dollars, those in the erection of the county court house alone to $8,000,000. Several of the malefactors were sent to prison and Tweed himself died there. Tammany, however, was victorious again in the second election (1874) after Tweed’s fall, and in 1884, when rival companies were seeking to obtain a franchise for working a street railway on Broadway, this privilege, so valuable that the city could have sold it for millions of dollars, was given away by the aldermen; and it was afterwards proved that a number of them had shared a cash bribe of $500,000. Some of them were subsequently punished, but Tammany’s power was not seriously impaired. In 1874 the city’s corporate limits were extended to include about 13,000 acres across the Harlem river; in 1895 there was a further extension in the same county to the southern borders of Yonkers and Mt. Vernon; and in 1898 all of Kings county, all of Richmond county (Staten Island) and a portion of Queens county were consolidated with it. As Tammany’s stronghold was in Manhattan, the annexation of these districts diminished the difficulty of holding Tammany in check, or of defeating it at the polls whenever the anti-Tammany forces united as a consequence of a notoriously corrupt administration. In 1894 an investigation of the state Senate brought to light some of the facts respecting an elaborate system of blackmail which had grown up under the joint protection of Tammany Hall and the city government. Under this system large sums were paid for appointments to office and promotions, and money was collected regularly from the keepers of gambling houses, houses of ill-fame and other disorderly resorts, and from liquor sellers for permission to violate certain details of the excise laws, such as midnight and Sunday closing. There followed a great outcry against Tammany and it was driven from power for three years. During the reform administration, Colonel George Edward Waring (1833–1898), as head of the street cleaning department, quite revolutionized New York as respects cleanliness. The police service and the school system were also much improved. Tammany was successful in the election of 1897 when the opposition was divided. It again abused its power and was defeated in 1901. In 1903 and 1905 the Tammany ticket was elected, but the mayor, George Brinton McClellan, administered the government, especially during his second term (1906–1910), independently of Tammany Hall. With the exception of the mayor the Tammany ticket was defeated in 1909, and the mayor, William Jay Gaynor (b. 1851), was little in sympathy with Tammany Hall, having been nominated apparently for the purpose of insuring the election of loyal Tammany men on the county ticket.
Bibliography.—Special works have been mentioned in the body of the article. Among general descriptive works are Moses King’s Handbook of New York (Boston, 1895), Rand McNally & Company’s Handy Guide to New York City (Chicago, 21st ed., 1907), Appleton’s Dictionary of New York (New York, 1905); and of a more aesthetic quality, John C. van Dyke’s The New New York (ib., 1909), with illustrations by Joseph Pennell. E. S. Martin edited (ib., 1909) The Wayfarer in New York, a book of selections. F. B. Kelley’s Historical Guide to the City of New York (ib., 1909), compiled under the auspices of the City History Club, is the best summary of old landmarks, places of historical interest, &c. For administration see The Charter of the City of New York with Amendments (New York, 1907); F. C. Seckerson, Manual of Civics: A Text-Book of Municipal Government for the City of New York (New York, 1908); and G. A. Ingalls, An Outline of Municipal Government in the City of New York (Albany, 1904). For history see Mrs Schuyler van Rensselaer, History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols.,
