Western Pennsylvanian Election 1937 and the New Deal

In an era where men worked hard for what they had but had little to show for it. When large corporate owners were refusing to allow workers into unions came about the New Deal. This proposal would not just change the lives of the workers during this time, it would change the lives of Americans for years to come.

In the Steel Valley of Western Pennsylvania, 1937, the elections of government officials had changed from years past. There was realignment of the political parties and the political parties switched positions for years to come. With the help of the Little New Deal in Western Pennsylvania, the amount of labor and satisfaction increased.

With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to president of the United States due to the Depression of the thirties, there was bound to be change. There was a great interest in the ideas of FDR’s New Deal. The interest and approval came for the blue-collar workers and lower-income households. The upper class approval on the other hand was on it way down, because all in all the New Deal would be essentially taking away from the upper class citizens, business owners, and giving middle lower class more.

Now that these new ideas were being utilized the workers wanted a new form of local government. If they would leave local government the way it was they would always be pushed around. So, middle class Americans would run for local government. The town would be more likely to elect someone who has been in their position before and want to help them out when they would strike rather then bring the police in and break it up. They would need someone with power on their side and that’s what they did.

In the year 1936 about fifty percent of the people in Pittsburgh, Pa voted Democratic with about nine percent Republican and three percent for someone else. Thirty seven percent of people didn’t vote. This was a great increase in voters from 1932 when only forty-two percent of the people voted. This showed that as more people voted the republicans still were receiving more votes but the Democrats were running away with the amount of people voting. Because of President Roosevelt’s plan to increase the number of jobs and his willingness to get involved with the large companies, people wanted to see this go through. People wanted to have this security that they were not receiving from the Republican government.

Elmer J. Maloy was the leader of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in Duquesne. In early November