Steel City Stan
| 👨🏭 | |
| Era | The Fifties |
|---|---|
| Age | 34-40 |
| Home | Pittsburgh, PA |
| Demographic | ethnic Catholic, union, industrial |
| Lean | labour_left |
| Race | white |
Stan is a Polish-American, Catholic steelworker in his late thirties in Pittsburgh who served in Europe during the Second World War. He belongs to the Steelworkers union, is part of the Democratic Party's industrial base, and he lives by his union and his parish.
Who they stand for
The United Steelworkers, led first by Philip Murray and then, after 1952, by David McDonald, was one of the two largest CIO unions and the organised base of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Its members were the sons of Polish, Slovak and Italian immigrants, mostly Catholic and mostly veterans. They won pensions after a strike in 1949 and a wage settlement in 1952, but only after President Truman seized the steel mills and the Supreme Court later ordered them returned to their owners. Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over Truman's veto in 1947, and the resentment it caused organised these workers politically and helped build Truman's 1948 election victory. Eisenhower won some of these workers over in 1952 by campaigning on Korea and Communism. A 116-day steel strike in 1959 ended when Eisenhower obtained a Taft-Hartley injunction against the union, and this, together with right-to-work referendums passed in Ohio and California in 1958, sent many of these workers back toward the Democratic Party. Cannery Carl, in Cleveland, is a similar voter a generation younger than Stan who did not serve in the war. Old Country Olga is a Catholic voter who supported the Republican Party instead.
Playing to them
Stan wants a president who supports the union during a strike. If a president backs the Steelworkers in a strike, vetoes right-to-work laws, refuses to use the Taft-Hartley Act against unions, or protects pensions, Stan supports him. If a president orders an injunction against his union, sends federal troops to reopen a plant, or cuts taxes for mill owners, Stan turns against him for the rest of his term. Stan is a patriot and a Catholic before he is a leftist. A president who takes a hard line against Moscow loses nothing with him, and a president who tolerates Communists in the labour movement gains nothing from him. Winning Stan's support on labour issues costs the support of Texas Oil Tex, Junior Exec Chip and Banker Prescott, and it also costs the support of Park Forest Phil whenever a strike stops production that affects him. On race, Stan is divided between the men he served with in the war and the neighbourhood he lives in. A president who pushes for open housing in Pittsburgh wins the support of South Side Marcus, but turns Stan's own neighbourhood against him.
Where they live
The five states where Steel City Stan makes up the largest share of the electorate in the fifties:
- West Virginia
- Michigan
- Ohio
- Wisconsin
- Pennsylvania