For my fourth quarter independent reading/final project, I decided to read The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor. This is one of my dad's favorite books, and I thought that there would be a lot of good opportunities for research to go along with it. I read this book once before in 7th grade, but I don't remember a lot of the specific details so I wanted to go back and read it again. The book is about Frank Skeffington, the aging mayor of a large American city (unnamed, although it is thought to be modeled after Boston); he is a dynamic Irish-American man with a huge political machine behind him. Skeffington is defeated in his final reelection campaign by a young, handsome, inexperienced WWII veteran. O'Connor uses this turn of events to highlight the changing political process in America; McCluskey, the young candidate, makes frequent use of TV in his campaigning. While Skeffington refuses to embrace new political tactics, he is deemed obsolete by the electorate in his city.
The character of Frank Skeffington is widely thought to be based on one of the most famous mayors of Boston, James Michael Curley. There are many similarities between the two men, and I think that it would be interesting to do some more research on Boston/other machine cities at the time. The city and characters are also very similar to Chicago during the days of machine politics. For this reason, I thought about using the book Don't Make No Waves, Don't Back No Losers by Milton Rakove for one of my sources of research. This book is a detailed study of Chicago's Daley machine that I think could give me some more insight into why O’Connor wrote the book and what kind of attitude about politics he was trying to convey.
I haven’t figured out what other sources I want to use, but there is a lot out there about city politics and the early 20th century. I'm not sure if I want to use some sources that are more contemporary as well (to focus more generally on the theme of political operations) or to keep the research confined to the time period of the book (to organize my essay/sources around a more historical lens). For some of my multi-genre works, I was thinking about making some campaign buttons, writing a speech, etc. It will be a good use of my experience working at campaign offices! I think, additionally, that this kind of research -- into how political attitudes and organizing methods are changing -- is relevant with the upcoming presidential election and also with other important political movements (Black Lives Matter, Fight for 15, etc).
I hope to keep learning about the inner workings of political campaigns the people who make the campaigns work. Plus, maybe this kind of information will help me later in life when I am (hopefully) doing some organizing myself.
You definitely have a lot of interesting ideas about the multi-genre works. It would be really cool to gain more insight from your presentation about how politicians go through the process of campaigning and then the comparison of how they actually run their office.
ReplyDeleteI like that you'll probably use other sources to gain more insight on your topic, but you don't have to use just one. You could also look at the bosses in New York City in Tammany Hall, like William Tweed, to study how politics shift from corruption and almost-totalitarianism to a more stable, less-corrupt system.
You could also connect it to modernity, with the massive political corruption in Illinois (our past few governors are great examples...) and throughout history.
Also, this is totally up your alley. It does not surprise me at all that you've chosen a book with politics as a major motif and around which the conflict of the novel surrounds. It's cool that you're following your passions in a field you're interested in and that this research could benefit your future, especially now that politics are going to surge to an all-time high with the 2016 presidential election.
You could also look into connections between politics and the media. I haven't read "The Last Hurrah" but the media and politicians work together closely in either symbiotic or antibiotic relationships. You could look into how much control PR teams for politicians have over the media, and how politician-media interaction has changed over time.
It might be interesting to see what Machines are still in place...It's fascinating stuff, and, yes, good for an activist to know how the game is played. I like how Emily brought up the moral ambiguity part -- it almost reminds me of my conversation with Maciej yesterday about cheating in sports... everyone else is doing it, so how would someone get the chance to compete if he/she doesn't cheat?
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