PATRONAGE AND ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE AT THE BROOKLYN-NAVY-YARD IN THE 1850S

The essay starts with an explanation of the formal structure of naval administration as outlined by congressional mandate. However, alternat ive mechanisms, rising out of the American political culture, undermin ed the formal with an informal system that accomplished similar goals but which yielded additional benefits. Controversies and factions with in the Navy became minor players as patronage worked its way into the evolving naval bureaucracy and used the formal structure in ways not f oreseen by its designers. As a result, the informal structure served a civilian political authority more powerful than its original master ( the Navy Department), subverting what seemed on paper to be an effecti ve command and control apparatus. The essay closes with a brief examin ation of recent work in the field of organization theory that might ex plain why the formal structure was unable to resist the informal struc ture.