Decline of Manufacturing and Mining: 1950-75
In 1962, the Republican Party, which had lost the two previous gubernatorial elections and seen the state's electoral votes go Democratic in the 1960 presidential election, became convinced that a moderate such as Bill Scranton would have enough bipartisan appeal to revitalize the party. He ran for Governor of Pennsylvania against Richardson Dilworth, the mayor of Philadelphia. The ticket was balanced by having Raymond P. Shafer as his running mate. He was later elected to succeed Scranton. After one of the most acrimonious campaigns in state history, the Scranton/Shafer team won a landslide victory in the election, besting their opponents by nearly half a million votes out of just over than 6.6 million cast.
As governor 1963-67, Scranton signed into law sweeping reforms in the state's education system, including creation of the state community college system, the state board of education, and the state Higher Education Assistance Agency. He founded a program designed to promote the state in national and international markets and to increase the attractiveness of the state's products and services.
The state was hard-hit by the decline and restructuring of the steel industry and other heavy U.S. industries during the late 20th century. With job losses came heavy population losses, especially in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh cities, where thousands of working-class people had formerly lived in prosperous, stable neighborhoods. Those who could, left the cities and region for work in other areas. As those two industrial cities lost nearly half their populations, the problems related to poverty and crime increased.
Read more about this topic: History Of Pennsylvania
Famous quotes containing the words decline of and/or decline:
“Where mass opinion dominates the government, there is a morbid derangement of the true functions of power. The derangement brings about the enfeeblement, verging on paralysis, of the capacity to govern. This breakdown in the constitutional order is the cause of the precipitate and catastrophic decline of Western society. It may, if it cannot be arrested and reversed, bring about the fall of the West.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)