Attacking Municipal Corruption: The Tweed Ring

    During the 1860s and early 1870s New York City was being held hostage by the most powerful political machine in history; The Tweed Ring. Through payoffs, kickbacks, padded contracts, election fraud and extortion, the Tweed Ring had New York's police, political officials and the great state's people in their pocket. The head honcho, William "Boss" Tweed, and his corrupt associates, were responsible for ultimately taking $200 million from NYC taxpayers.
  
   The City of New York was in shambles during the 1860s because of the Civil War. For the first time in American history the states that sided with the North imposed a draft on the public. There is a movie called Gangs of New York that takes place during the same time period as Boss Tweed's rise to power in NYC. In the movie, Tweed is represented as the "big man on campus" in Manhattan, who controls everything that happens in what they refer to as the Five Points.
  

Jim Broadbent as Boss Tweed in Gangs of New York.

Tammany Hall, the headquarters of Boss Tweed during his reign of power.

    Unfortunately for Tweed, his run as "boss" of New York couldn't last forever. A man by the name of Thomas Nast, who is without a doubt one of the most famous cartoonist in journalism history, aimed his drawings at Tweed and his corrupt organization. His goal wasn't to show New York what Tweed's corrupt administration was up to, but he made every last effort to make Tweed look like a fool to the people of New York. Due to Nast's efforts, along with the New York Times and Harper's Weekly Tweed was arrested and eventually died in prison in 1878 at fifty-five years old.

One of Thomas Nast's most famous cartoon of Tweed with a round stature, and money for a face