A large portion of the movie we watched in class spoke about the ventures and activities of Boss Tweed. His real name was William Magear Tweed. Born in 1823, Boss Tweed was a Politician and boss of Tamany Hall (that is why his name is Boss Tweed). Tamany Hall was a group of corrupt Democratic Politicians which controlled New York. The head of the group was Boss Tweed and he was the puppet master of the group. As a result, he became the 3rd largest landowner of New York property in the nation.
Boss Tweed has many positions in politics. He was a Senator and the Commissioner of Sanitation. Though this doesn’t sound like a great job, it had many perks for Tweed. He was able to do many corrupt deals. One such example was when he created the New York City Courthouse. It cost twice as much as the purchase of Alaska! Basically, Tweed overpriced everything that he needed to make the Courthouse. For example, a chair that was worth 5$ would cost 50$ and a carpet worth 1,000$ would cost 50,000$. However, Tweed had other ideas as well. As the Commissioner of Public Works, he was in charge of building sewage pipes and other buildings for the public. He had prior knowledge of where they were to be built and bought those properties beforehand. All in all, he was a criminal genius who was caught and died in jail.
This cartoon depicts Tweed as controlling Congress through his wealth.
