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A Tale of Two Cities: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Elusive Quest for a New Deal Majority in the Keystone State
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The Needs of the Many ... | |
| In retrospect, the formation of a Democratic electoral majority in the 1930s—one that ruled American politics for two generations—seems almost to have been inevitable. The Great Depression, and then a world war, enabled Franklin D. Roosevelt to lay the foundations of the modern welfare state, drive much of the public policy debate, and unite Americans in war—and to some extent in peace. But a careful study of the national scene, as well as sensitivity to the nuances of community and state politics in Pennsylvania, paints a different picture. |
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The New Deal coalition was comprised of various interests with little in common beyond shared poverty and a profound admiration for President Roosevelt. Segregationist white southerners, northern blacks, Jews, Catholics, and unskilled workers who enlisted in the affiliates of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) maintained a tenuous alliance brokered by Roosevelt. On more than a few occasions, the New Deal coalition faltered, leading to both local and national Republican victories. Due to effective organization, cultural preferences, and political habit, among other factors, Republicans remained viable, and even strong, in states such as Pennsylvania. |
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Essential to Democratic victory were the children of southern and eastern European Roman Catholic and Jewish immigrants who clustered in the urban industrial centers of the North. With the advent of federal immigration-restriction legislation in 1921 (and again in 1924), ethnic urban wards largely ceased to be centers of transient male workers who had little desire to follow the moral exhortations of clergy, join labor unions, and become voting citizens. Although nativist sentiment contributed to the passage of immigration-restriction laws, Catholics and Jews reaped unintended benefits. Improved neighborhood stability and the acquisition of English-language skills resulted from immigration restriction, since immigrants, if they chose not to return to Europe, learned to care about their surroundings while their children attended public or parochial schools. These developments in turn helped raise attendance at church and temple and made it possible to organize ethnically diverse workers who were generally speaking the same language by the 1930s. |
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In addition, high birthrates in ethnic neighborhoods contributed to the expansion of the American electorate. Between 1920 and 1936, the number of voters in the United States increased 40 percent. This electoral expansion was largely a northern urban phenomenon. For example, by 1940, 51 percent of New York's voters and 45 percent of Illinois's electorate were in New York City and Chicago, respectively. If there was any hope of Democrats winning Pennsylvania, they had to rack up large margins in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) and Philadelphia County.1 |
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Joining the immigrants were tens of thousands of southern blacks who had migrated north during and after World War I. As a result of black migration and Catholic and Jewish immigration, urban America became a political player with which to reckon. In 1950, for instance, Wayne County (Detroit) accounted for two-thirds of Michigan's Democratic voters and four hundred thousand of seven hundred thousand state CIO members. As political scientist Steven Erie has calculated, without the twelve largest cities powering their states to the Democratic column, Roosevelt's 449 Electoral College votes in 1940 would have been reduced to 237—29 short of reelection. Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, national and Keystone Democrats ardently courted Pittsburgh and Philadelphia voters.2 |
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