The Cost of a Vote
Courtesy of New York Public library
This addition to our series stumping and eating takes to the Big Apple on eve of the 1876 presidential election. Historically, close to an Election Day political bosses in the city had been more common than “blackberries in September,” says a writer for the Weekly Irish Times. A political boss is one who holds power over a voting district or districts. They may not hold political office but their influence over political appointments, government jobs, construction projects and the jobs they produce and access to government funding for community initiatives gives them power over how groups and individuals vote on election day.[1] In late 19th-century New York City, Tammany Hall bosses had a reputation for drinking “champagne at $10 a bottle like water.” With inflation that would be about $222.00 a bottle today. As an election day grew closer, they bought rounds of drinks and food in bars filled to capacity in coveted voting districts carefully calculating in advance the cost of a vote.[2]
[1] For more on political bosses in New York City see Frederick Douglass Opie, Upsetting the Apple Cart: Black and Latino Coalitions In New York City from Protest to Public Office (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)
[2] Weekly Irish Times, August 19, 1876
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