Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Elusive Quest for a New Deal Majority in the Keystone State
A Tale of Two Cities: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Elusive Quest for a New Deal Majority in the Keystone State The Needs of the Many . N RETROSPECT, the formation of a Democratic electoral majority in the 1930s—one that ruled American politics for two generations— Iseems 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. 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 vic- tories. Due to effective organization, cultural preferences, and political habit, among other factors, Republicans remained viable, and even strong, in states such as Pennsylvania. 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 THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY Vol.
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