Their efforts led to the election of a reform mayor in 1894, a setback for the political machine known as Tammany Hall.
Members of several political reform movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were often labeled as goo-goos, including the Mugwumps and the Progressives.
In American politics, the term is still used occasionally as a mildly derisive label for high-minded citizens or reformers.
Mike Royko, a Chicago political columnist of the late 20th century, revived the word without reinventing it.
When Royko wrote about the "goo-goos" along Lake Shore Drive, he may even have agreed with them, but Slats Grobnik, his fictional Chicagoan, was very cynical about them.