{"id":699,"date":"2010-10-11T17:02:46","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T17:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/?p=699"},"modified":"2010-10-12T21:26:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T21:26:12","slug":"the-1936-presidential-election-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/2010\/10\/11\/the-1936-presidential-election-in-new-york-city\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1936 Presidential Election in New York City."},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1936 Presidential Election in New York City.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Posted on October 11, 2010<\/a> by bradmeisel<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.legacyamericana.com\/servlet\/the-19914\/Pinback-button-promoting-Franklin\/Detail<\/a>\u00a0Copyright, Legacy Americana, LLC.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On election day, November 3, 1936, \u201ca crowd estimated by the police at \u2018a million\u2019 persons kept Times Square and the theater district in continual uproar last night as news of the President\u2019s reelection flashed from The Times<\/span><\/em> tower\u201d (\u201cElection Crowd in a Merry Mood<\/a>.\u201d New York Times. <\/em>4 November, 1936, 5).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 1936 Presidential election pitted Democratic President and former New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John Garner, who were elected in a landslide four years prior, against the Republican ticket of Kansas Governor Alf Landon and Chicago newspaper publisher Frank Knox.\u00a0 According to historian Michael J. Webber, President Roosevelt\u2019s first term in office saw the emergence of a \u201cnew welfare state,\u201d as a result of his agenda of sweeping reforms, known as the New Deal, which were aimed at alleviating the Great Depression.\u00a0 As a result, the Presidential election \u201cwas, in many ways, a referendum on the activist role taken on by the federal government since the inception of the New Deal.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0(Webber, Michael J. New Deal Fat Cats: Business, Labor, and Campaign Finance in the 1936 Presidential Election<\/a>. <\/em>New York: Fordham University Press, 2000, 127).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The New Deal included the creation of Social Security, which provided financial assistance to elderly Americans, the Works Progress Administration, which employed people who were previously unemployed to participate in public works projects, and agencies such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which served to regulate business and protect consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On Election Day, the American electorate, comprised of men and women over the age of 21, delivered a clear statement of support for President Roosevelt\u2019s agenda. \u00a0The next day, voting returns across the entire nation implied \u201cthat more Americans than ever went to the polls\u201d (\u201cA Record Vote<\/a>.\u201d New York Times. <\/em>4 November, 1936, 30).\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the New York metropolitan area \u201cthe President maintained a 3 to 1 ratio\u201d over Landon with heavy turnout, allowing him to carry his home state by one million votes despite \u201can upsurge of Republican votes\u201d upstate (\u201cPresident Piles Up 1,000,000 New York Lead<\/a>.\u201d Associated Press<\/em>. 4 November, 1936, 1).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the late afternoon on Election Day, throngs of Roosevelt supporters congregated in Times Square to watch as the incoming returns were displayed on The Times Building.\u00a0 \u201cBy 6 P.M. Times Square was comfortably filled,\u201d and within two hours, the crowd spilled out \u201cnorth of the square.\u201d\u00a0 When it became evident that the Democratic ticket had emerged victorious, a jubilant celebration erupted, and \u201cstreamers flew.\u201d\u00a0 New York Police Deputy Chief Inspector Patrick Murphy was quoted as saying that \u201cNever in all my years of experience have I seen such a mob of cheering, shouting spectators\u201d (\u201cElection Crowd in a Merry Mood<\/a>.\u201d New York Times. <\/em>4 November, 1936, 5).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A similar scene unfolded in Chicago, where \u201cseveral thousands of Democrats staged a wild victory celebration.\u201d\u00a0 Democratic campaign workers joined enthusiastic citizens in the festivities after the results became evident.\u00a0 Revelers \u201cbuilt bonfires in the streets, halted traffic,\u201d and tore \u201ctrolley wires off several street cars.\u201d\u00a0 The swarm of people celebrating the President\u2019s reelection grew so raucous that \u201cextra police were sent to the scene,\u201d in order to prevent \u201cfurther damage\u201d (\u201cWild Jubilee Held in Loop by Democrats<\/a>.\u201d Chicago Tribune, <\/em>4 November, 1936, 1).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The emphatic affirmation of the New Deal by the electorate in the Presidential Election of 1936, as demonstrated by the avalanche of voter enthusiasm in the New York metropolitan area, was emblematic of the emergence of a new Democratic voting bloc.\u00a0 According to historian Michael J. Webber, Roosevelt\u2019s landslide victory was a result of the formation of a \u201cNew Deal coalition,\u201d which consisted of \u201corganized labor, religious and ethnic minorities, the urban poor, liberals and progressives\u201d (Webber, Michael J. New Deal Fat Cats: Business, Labor, and Campaign Finance in the 1936 Presidential Election<\/a>. <\/em>New York: Fordham University Press, 2000, 127).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The President\u2019s New Deal policies supported organized labor and established welfare programs to assist the urban poor, many of whom were members of the minority groups referred to by Webber, thereby solidifying these individuals\u2019 fervent support for the Democratic party.\u00a0 As New York and Chicago were two of the nation\u2019s largest metropolitan areas and home to a plethora of ethnic groups and many working and lower class individuals, the President\u2019s enthusiastic support in these cities was a strong indication of the emergence of the New Deal era Democratic constituency, the fruit of which continues to manifest itself in American electoral politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1936 Presidential Election in New York City. Posted on October 11, 2010 by bradmeisel \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.legacyamericana.com\/servlet\/the-19914\/Pinback-button-promoting-Franklin\/Detail\u00a0Copyright, Legacy Americana, LLC.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On election day, November 3, 1936, \u201ca crowd estimated by the police at \u2018a million\u2019 persons kept Times Square and the theater district in continual uproar last night as news of the President\u2019s reelection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-211pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}