Crucible of Freedom

Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s which was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America which existed before. In the process, class politics re-defined the political agenda of America as--for the first and time in American history--the political universe polarized along class lines. The author explores the meaning of the new deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole.