Welcome to 1932: A summer of social protests and divisive presidential politics
By James N. Gregory, Professor of History, University of Washington An election looms. An unpopular president wrestles with historic unemployment rates. Demonstrations erupt in hundreds of locations. The president deploys Army units to suppress peaceful protests in the nation’s capital. And most of all he worries about an affable Democratic candidate who is running against him without saying much about a platform or plans. Welcome to 1932. I am a historian and director of the Mapping American Social Movements Project, which explores the history of social movements and their interaction with American electoral politics. The parallels between the summer...
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