Posted by 3Breann on September 27, 2009 at 10:24am
Politics in the Gilded AgeGilded Age- This was a time after the Civil War, from about 1865 till 1901 so the late 19th century, when America had a huge growth in population and people were showing their money by buying mansions and extravagent things. There was a lot of extortion during this time period, in order to get the canidate that certain peolpe wanted elected.William Tweed and other people he was in a political machine with made tax payers pay $13 million dollars form a project when the actual project only cost $3 million. Tweed, or Boss Tweed, and the others pocketed the rest of the money for themselves. Tweed was sentanced to jail for 12 years but got out after one year and then was arrested again and then escaped from jail and was later found in Spain.A political machine is defined as "An organized group that controlled the activities of a political party in a city". These people contolled the finacal support and other things in order to get their canidate elceted and this is were the bribs and extortion came into play.-Breann Lehr
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