Livia Gershon at JSTOR Daily:
Recent victories for democratic socialist politicians like Zohran Mamdani in New York and Janeese Lewis George in Washington, DC have gotten a lot of people talking about the “sewer socialists” who came to power in the 1910s Midwest, especially in Milwaukee. Historian Michael E. Stevens looks at how one such politician, Daniel Webster Hoan Jr., applied big ideological principles to the daily grind of running a city.
In the early 1900s, Stevens writes, political corruption and graft was a notorious problem in Milwaukee. The local Socialist Party vowed to take this issue on, running a slate of candidates in 1910 on the promise of addressing issues like no-bid contracts. The plan worked. Emile Seidel, who would later go on to be Eugene V. Debs’ running mate in the 1912 presidential election, became mayor. His party also won 21 out of 35 seats on the Common Council. And Hoan was elected city attorney.
More here.
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