William "Boss" Tweed was one of the most powerful and influential people of the civil war era. He was a political figure in New York City from 1950 to the mid 1870's. He was originally on the democratic committee and by the time he had be imprisoned for being a corrupt leader he was the deputy street commissioner and the deputy commissioner of public works for New York City. While he was in power "Boss" Tweed had many different people and groups tried to knock him out of power, the Muckrakers were a number of journalists from different news outlets in New York City and they were the most involved with trying to catch Tweed and bring him down. In 1870 some New York City workers went on strike and began to riot and fight the police. In early 1873 the first of many trials against Tweed were held. Later that year he was sent to prison for corrupt acts involving improperly auditing bills in order to gain more money for him self.
English: William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (1823—1878) ...
English: Library of Congress summary: "Caricature ...
English: Buzz Tweed, a fictitious congressman, is ...Tweed could have done a lot of good for the city of New York although his insatiable greed made him lose sight of that and he wound up in jail.
William Magear Tweed was born on April 3rd 1823 in New York City to Richard Tweed and Eliza Magear. His father was a chair maker in New York when William was growing up. After holding a number of jobs in his teens, Tweed became a bookkeeper in a small brush factory that his father invested in (Tyler, Anbinder pg 60-62). He became a partner in the company after he married the owner's daughter. He and his wife had twelve children two of which died at a very young age. In 1846 he was an active member of...