Records of donations by Philadelphia Department of Public Works employees to the city’s Republican Party, 1903-1914
The Republican Party, according to Peter McCaffery in his 1993 book, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, ran the city government for about seventy years, from just after the Civil War until the onset of the Great Depression. One of the many ways they maintained their power was by controlling appointments to city jobs at all levels, and then soliciting “voluntary” contributions from those same appointees. The bulk of the documents in the attached PDF are lists of Public Works Department employees along with the dollar amounts each donated to the party. The focus is on employees of the Bureau of Water, but also included are those who worked for the bureaus of Surveys, Highways, Ice Boats, and Filtration.
There is correspondence from the Republican Central Campaign Committee soliciting the voluntary donations; receipts for donations from C.D. Hill; and various other records. One list ominously notes the non-contributors; and one letter is from an employee seeking a receipt for a donation he made, presumably to help him keep his job. It should be noted, as well, that these are not insubstantial sums; adjusted for inflation, a $7 donation in 1903 equates to approximately $250 in 2023.
This collection was donated to the PWD Historical Collection in 2005 by the Williams College Archives and Special Collections. It contains 59 pages, and includes handwritten, photostat, and carbon copies. DOWNLOAD a PDF of the entire collection here.