{"id":139589,"date":"2026-03-16T13:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/139589\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:06:08","slug":"in-1948-philadelphia-hosted-three-political-conventions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/139589\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1948, Philadelphia hosted three political conventions"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been about 180 years since Philadelphia started hosting major political conventions, and we\u2019re on the short list to host yet another Democratic National Convention in 2028 \u2014 which would be our first in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

But about 80 years ago, Philly played host to not one large political gathering, but three.<\/p>\n

The year was 1948. At the time, city leaders were aggressively pursuing the national political spotlight, and got exactly what they bargained for after being selected as the site for not only that year\u2019s DNC, but also the Republican National Convention, as well as the convention for the Progressive Party, a then-popular upstart group that some viewed as nothing more than a cadre of Communist sympathizers. <\/p>\n

And, perhaps more significantly, all three conventions took place across about five weeks\u2019 time in the heat and humidity of one scorching Philadelphia summer, occupying a long-gone event space known as Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center. Demolished in 2005, the site today is home to Penn Medicine\u2019s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine at 3400 Civic Center Blvd.<\/p>\n

But eight decades ago, it was the political battleground from which New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, incumbent President Harry S. Truman, and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace emerged as 1948\u2019s leading presidential candidates. After that, no major political party held a presidential nominating convention in the city for more than half a century.<\/p>\n

Here is how The Inquirer covered that monumental summer:<\/p>\n

Television set the stage<\/p>\n

City leaders in 1947 began courting the Republicans<\/a> and Democrats<\/a>, ultimately getting their attention after offering $250,000 in funding to each to have their conventions in Philadelphia \u2014 plus thousands of hotel rooms and free use of Convention Hall.<\/p>\n

But not to be overlooked, at least by convention organizers, was Philadelphia\u2019s place in the then-burgeoning world of television. <\/p>\n

A coaxial cable network had recently been established that allowed the nascent television networks to broadcast convention happenings live to an estimated 10 million people watching 18 stations in nine cities along the Eastern Seaboard. Very much a physical network of cables, it ran roughly from Boston to Richmond, Va., putting Philadelphia about smack in the middle of its run \u2014 making the city the premier place from which events could be funneled to other areas.<\/p>\n

Television was then a fast-growing industry, and a medium that was anticipated to be a \u201cmajor economic and social force,\u201d reports from the time indicate. Demand for TV sets, incidentally, was also strongly affected by that year\u2019s political conventions \u2014 so much so that local manufacturers like the Philco Corp., which operated 17 factories in the region, including a cathode ray tube-making facility in Lansdale<\/a>, struggled to keep up with demand.<\/p>\n

Hot, hot heat<\/p>\n

For convention attendees, the advent of television was not without its problems. Primarily, those complications arrived in the form of an array of powerful lights installed at Convention Hall to enable visibility for broadcasts \u2014 and heating up an already toasty venue, thanks to the hot, humid summer Philadelphia was experiencing. <\/p>\n

During the first day of the DNC on July 12, for example, temperatures reached the mid-90s, and humidity levels were \u201csomething scandalous,\u201d an Inquirer report noted, leaving convention-goers to sweat it out in the un-air-conditioned hall. Television audiences could see the weather\u2019s impact on speakers and attendees live, especially during the DNC, which took place amid a heatwave.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Alben W. Barkley (D., Ky.), who would go on to be Truman\u2019s vice president, gave a keynote speech that was considered a rousing success \u2014 though, as Inquirer reports indicated, he was \u201creduced to a quivering mound of perspiration\u201d during its run. <\/p>\n

Contemporary accounts indicate that about 100 DNC attendees were treated for heat-related issues, with ailments ranging from dehydration to heat exhaustion. Though fatalities and hospitalizations were not reported, that year marked the last in which major political conventions were held in venues that lacked air-conditioning.<\/p>\n

An unexpectedly controversial DNC<\/p>\n

By most accounts the 1948 RNC was a fairly uneventful affair \u2014 one that involved extensive planning, policing, and logistics but essentially went off without a hitch. The DNC, which arrived weeks later, however, was something of a surprisingly spicy event.<\/p>\n

Initially, Inquirer reports indicate, Democratic delegates appeared to be resigned to a boring, business-as-usual convention, with many having climbed \u201creluctantly aboard the Truman bandwagon\u201d following refusals to run by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Truman\u2019s candidacy was largely a foregone conclusion by the convention\u2019s start, which turned out to be a correct assumption.<\/p>\n

At least somewhat unexpected, however, was a mid-convention walkout by about three dozen delegates from Mississippi and Alabama who strongly objected to a muscular civil rights plank adopted by the party \u2014 as well as to Truman\u2019s nomination in general. Those who opposed those elements would go on to be known colloquially as the Dixiecrats. They later would hold their own convention in Alabama to nominate Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate, largely around a platform of states\u2019 rights to allow the continuation of racial segregation.<\/p>\n

That walkout boiled over following Truman\u2019s nomination, with Mississippi Gov. Fielding Wright announcing the incumbent candidate would \u201cnot receive a single Mississippi vote\u201d before leading delegates out of the hall. Georgia Sen. Richard Russell was slightly more dramatic, telling attendees that \u201cthe South is no longer the whipping boy of the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The walkout fell short of expectations, as many delegates from the South \u201creluctantly but glumly\u201d remained in their seats, The Inquirer reported.<\/p>\n

A Progressive Party footnote<\/p>\n

Following extensive coverage of the RNC and DNC, which themselves brought tens of thousands of visitors to Philadelphia, the final 1948 convention from the Progressive Party seemed to weigh on the nerves of Philadelphia residents.<\/p>\n

Essentially viewed as a personal celebration for former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, the Progressive Party\u2019s assumed presidential candidate, that get-together was thought of as \u201cless a convention than an irritant,\u201d The Inquirer reported. This was especially true for Philadelphia\u2019s hospitality workers, who had spent weeks serving Republicans and Democrats before the Progressives came to town.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst we had the Republicans. They were nice, fat, dignified people,\u201d a maid at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, where the parties set up their headquarters all summer, told The Inquirer. \u201cThen we had the Democrats. They were nice, respectable working types \u2014 a little thinner. Now we have these people, and, poor things, they look as though they haven\u2019t had a square meal in weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, there was the local media, which, after weeks of intense political coverage, appeared to be mostly fed up by the time Wallace and Co. came around. This was, after all, a pivotal year in the Cold War, and one replete with anti-Communist messaging \u2014 and The Inquirer, at least, did not take kindly to the perceived anti-anti-Soviet platform adopted by the Progressives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Progressive Party is composed of countless minority and fringe groups looking for a political home,\u201d one report read. \u201cThey consist mainly of \u2018aginners,\u2019 against this and against that and willing to follow the Communist sympathizers as long as their own pet ideas are incorporated in the party platform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been about 180 years since Philadelphia started hosting major political conventions, and we\u2019re on the short…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,64029],"class_list":{"0":"post-139589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-philadelphia","9":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","10":"tag-philadelphia-news","11":"tag-political-conventions-philadelphia-1948-dnc-rnc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}