Dewey Defeats Truman
Dewey Defeats Truman

Author: Albert J. Baime

Publisher: Mariner Books

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 1328585069

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On the eve of the 1948 election, America was a fractured country. Racism was rampant, foreign relations were fraught, and political parties were more divided than ever. Americans were certain that President Harry S. Truman's political career was over. The only man in the world confident that Truman would win was Mr. Truman himself. And win he did. Baime sheds light on one of the most action-packed six months in American history, as Truman not only triumphs, but oversees watershed events: the passing of the Marshall plan, the acknowledgment of Israel as a new state, the careful attention to the origins of the Cold War, and the first desegregation of the military. -- adapted from jacket

Truman's Triumphs
Truman's Triumphs

Author: Andrew E. Busch

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2012-10-23

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0700618678

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The Chicago Tribune headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" remains infamously wrong about the outcome of the 1948 presidential election. But, as Andrew Busch reveals, there is much more to this story than the well-worn image of a victorious and beaming President Harry Truman parading the newspaper's erroneously headlined front page for all to see. Primarily a contest between Truman and challenger Thomas Dewey, the 1948 presidential race offered something for everyone, including two third-party candidates (Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace), triumphant grit, tragic hubris, dangerous naivet, accidents of fate, accusations of betrayal, foreign crises, the birth of Israel in the Middle East, a dramatic special session of Congress, internecine battles among unions and liberals, spies, extremists galore (including Ku Klux Klansmen and Communists), the first televised convention, wayward polls, and, of course, a final result that surprised many. Amid a small library of books on the topic, Busch's stands out by offering the best scholarly study available--and the most readable. His fresh account goes beyond previous work by examining more closely the nomination season, key congressional elections, and the state of public opinion. He also digs into splits in both parties-the Democrats seeing Southern segregationists and the far left run their own candidates and the Republicans facing a division between philosophical wings representing the 80th Congress and the presidential ticket--and tells why the Republican schism proved more damaging. He concludes that the election was especially significant as an affirmation of the New Deal, of anti-Communist containment, and of gradual progress in civil rights--all of which established the political baseline for postwar America. Even readers knowledgeable about Truman's 1948 victory will discover new findings in this fresh and revealing account of that dramatic race. Truman's Triumphs recalls a contest with more twists and turns-and a different outcome-than most contemporaries anticipated, and makes engaging reading for scholar and history buff alike.

1948
1948

Author: David Pietrusza

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781402767487

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The 1948 election was a war for the soul of the Democratic Party, with accidental president Harry Truman pitted against Henry Wallace, his embittered left-wing predecessor as vice president, and young South Carolina segregationist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. On the GOP side, it's a four-way battle between cold-as-ice New Yorker Tom Dewey, Minnesota upstart Harold Stassen, stodgy but brilliant Ohio conservative Robert Taft, and imperious but aged Douglas MacArthur. Author David Pietrusza goes beyond the headlines to place in context a down-to-the-wire fight against the background of an erupting Cold War, the birth of Israel, storms over civil rights, and domestic communism. Featuring a stellar supporting cast: Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Earl Warren, Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Pete Seeger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joe McCarthy, Clark Clifford, William O. Douglas, George C. Marshall, John Foster Dulles, Adlai Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson, H. L. Mencken, Harold Ickes, Clare and Henry Luce, and Ronald Reagan.--From publisher description.

Truman Defeats Dewey
Truman Defeats Dewey

Author: Gary A. Donaldson

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0813149231

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Fifty years ago Harry S. Truman pulled off the greatest upset in U.S. political history. With his party split on both the left and the right, and facing a formidable Republican opponent in New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, the Missourian was thought to have little chance of remaining in the White House. But politics in the postwar years were changing dramatically. Truman and his advisers successfully read those changes: their strategy focused on building a coalition of organized labor, African Americans in large northern cities, and traditional liberals—and ignoring protests from the conservative South. Donaldson argues that Dewey did nearly as much to lose the election as Truman did to win it. Dewey entered the campaign so overconfident that he refused to confront Truman on the issues. The Republicans, certain of a mandate from the public after the midterm elections of 1946, prepared to disassemble the New Deal. Yet they suffered from even more severe internal division than the Democrats. The 1948 presidential campaign was a watershed event in the history of American politics. It encompassed Truman's rousing "Give 'em Hell Harry" speeches and intriguing behind-the-scenes political maneuvering. It was the first election after Roosevelt's death and the last before the advent of television. It marked the new political prominence of African American voters and organized labor, as well as the South's declining influence over the Democratic Party.

Henry Wallace's 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism
Henry Wallace's 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism

Author: Thomas W. Devine

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2013-05-27

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1469602040

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In the presidential campaign of 1948, Henry Wallace set out to challenge the conventional wisdom of his time, blaming the United States, instead of the Soviet Union, for the Cold War, denouncing the popular Marshall Plan, and calling for an end to segregation. In addition, he argued that domestic fascism--rather than international communism--posed the primary threat to the nation. He even welcomed Communists into his campaign, admiring their commitment to peace. Focusing on what Wallace himself later considered his campaign's most important aspect, the troubled relationship between non-Communist progressives like himself and members of the American Communist Party, Thomas W. Devine demonstrates that such an alliance was not only untenable but, from the perspective of the American Communists, undesirable. Rather than romanticizing the political culture of the Popular Front, Devine provides a detailed account of the Communists' self-destructive behavior throughout the campaign and chronicles the frustrating challenges that non-Communist progressives faced in trying to sustain a movement that critiqued American Cold War policies and championed civil rights for African Americans without becoming a sounding board for pro-Soviet propaganda.

Dear Bess
Dear Bess

Author: Harry S. Truman

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 9780826212030

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This correspondence, which encompasses Truman's courtship of his wife, his service in the senate, his presidency, and after, reveals not only the character of Truman's mind but also a shrewd observer's view of American politics.

The Last Campaign
The Last Campaign

Author: Zachary Karabell

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0307428869

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In The Last Campaign, Zachary Karabell rescues the 1948 presidential campaign from the annals of political folklore ("Dewey Defeats Truman," the Chicago Tribune memorably and erroneously heralded), to give us a fresh look at perhaps the last time the American people could truly distinguish what the candidates stood for. In 1948, Harry Truman, the feisty working-class Democratic incumbent was one of the most unpopular presidents the country had ever known. His Republican rival, the aloof Thomas Dewey, was widely thought to be a shoe-in. These two major party candidates were flanked on the far left by the Progressive Henry Wallace, and on the far right by white supremacist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. The Last Campaign exposes the fascinating story behind Truman’s legendary victory and turns a probing eye toward a by-gone era of political earnestness, when, for “the last time in this century, an entire spectrum of ideologies was represented,” a time before television fundamentally altered the political landscape.

Battleground 1948
Battleground 1948

Author: Robert E Hartley

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2013-09-02

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 080933268X

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The election year of 1948 remains to this day one of the most astonishing in U.S. political history. During this first general election after World War II, Americans looked to their governments for change. As the battle for the nation’s highest office came to a head in Illinois, the state was embroiled in its own partisan showdowns—elections that would prove critical in the course of state and national history. In Battleground 1948, Robert E. Hartley offers the first comprehensive chronicle of this historic election year and its consequences, which still resonate today. Focusing on the races that ushered Adlai Stevenson, Paul Douglas, and Harry Truman into office—the last by the slimmest of margins—Battleground 1948 details the pivotal events that played out in the state of Illinois, from the newspaper wars in Chicago to tragedy in the mine at Centralia. In addition to in-depth revelations on the saga of the American election machine in 1948, Hartley probes the dark underbelly of Illinois politics in the 1930s and 1940s to set the stage, spotlight key party players, and expose the behind-the-scenes influences of media, money, corruption, and crime. In doing so, he draws powerful parallels between the politics of the past and those of the present. Above all, Battleground 1948 tells the story of grassroots change writ large on the American political landscape—change that helped a nation move past an era of conflict and depression, and forever transformed Illinois and the U.S. government.

Truman’s Whistle-stop Campaign
Truman’s Whistle-stop Campaign

Author: Steven R. Goldzwig

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2008-03-26

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 9781603440066

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Faced with the likely loss of the 1948 presidential elections, Harry S. Truman decided to do what he did best: talk straight. When Truman boarded the train to head west in June 1948, he and his campaign advisors decided to shift from prepared text to extemporaneous stump speeches. The “new Truman” emerged as a feisty, engaged speaker, brimming with ideas on policies and programs important to the common citizen. Steven R. Goldzwig engagingly chronicles the origins of Truman’s “give ‘em hell” image and the honing of his rhetorical delivery during his ostensibly nonpolitical train trip west, which came to be known as his “whistle-stop tour.” At the time, Truman was both applauded and derided by the public, but his speeches delivered at each stop helped win him the presidency. Goldzwig’s detailed look at the background of the campaign, Truman’s preparations and goals, the train trip itself, and the text and tone of the speeches helps us better understand how Truman carried the 1948 election and came to represent the plainspoken “man of the people” who returns from behind to win, against all odds.

FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944
FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944

Author: David M. Jordan

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2011-09-02

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 0253356830

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" With its insider tales and accounts of party politics, and campaigning for votes in the shadow of war and an uncertain future, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 makes for a fascinating chapter in American political history.