The Boss’s “Brains”: Political Capital, Democratic Commerce and the New York Tweed Ring, 1868–1871 JEFFREY D. BROXMEYER* Abstract Departing from Pierre Bourdieu’s contention that capital takes on many forms beyond the economic, including a political form, this article examines how commodification patterned nineteenth century American politics. A case study of the Tweed Ring, which briefly governed Gilded Age New York, is reevaluated as a speculative political bubble that produced empirically identifiable political profits. From an election sweep in 1868 to a bank run in 1871, William Tweed gained and lost political power and material wealth through management of what the editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast hailed as the boss’s “Brains,” or democratic commerce, the market in political commodities. ***** Comparative Gilded Ages Historians and social scientists have begun to characterize the contemporary period in the United States as a new Gilded Age. In 1873, the satirist Mark Twain and his co-author, Charles Warner, coined the famous moniker in The Gilded Age, A Tale of To-day. Their novel so captured the lucrative but degraded spirit of the time that its very title came to define the turbulent years between the U.S. Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, when unpar- alleled fortunes were made in business and politics alike. Scholars who find meaningful parallels between late nineteenth century America and today base their categorization on comparable eco- nomic patterns of financial-sector dominance, wealth and income polarization, and the strength of business groups relative to the disorganization of the working-class. 1 To these characteristics, I would add that public officeholders have translated political expertise into sizable rents – personal income made possible by privileged or exclusive access to valuable knowledge and decision- making. Although fascinating in its own right, rent seeking by political figures and their conspicuous consumption invite greater scrutiny into underlying factors. * Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer is an advanced doctoral candidate in political science at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and has taught at Hunter College. He may be contacted at jbroxmeyer@ gc.cuny.edu. Journal of Historical Sociology Vol. •• No. •• •• 2014 DOI: 10.1111/johs.12062 © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd