1948 United States presidential election in the context of "Thomas E. Dewey"

The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party in the United States and the third-longest active party.

Although it was never one of the leading parties in the United States, it was once an important force in the Third Party System during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The organization declined following the enactment of Prohibition in the United States but saw a rise in vote totals following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933. However, following World War II it declined, with 1948 being the last time its presidential candidate received over 100,000 votes and 1976 being the last time the party received over 10,000 votes.

The 1948 Democratic National Convention was held at Philadelphia Convention Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from July 12 to July 15, 1948, and resulted in the nominations of President Harry S. Truman for a full term and Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky for vice president in the 1948 presidential election.

One of the decisive factors in convening both major party conventions in Philadelphia that year was that the eastern Pennsylvania area was part of the newly developing broadcast television market. In 1947, TV stations in New York City, Washington and Philadelphia were connected by a coaxial cable. By the summer of 1948 two of the three new television networks, NBC and CBS, had the ability to telecast along the east coast live gavel-to-gavel coverage of both conventions. In television's early days, live broadcasts were not routinely recorded, but a few minutes of Kinescope film of the conventions has survived.

Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd vice president of the United States, serving from 1941 to 1945, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He served as the 11th U.S. secretary of agriculture and the 10th U.S. secretary of commerce. He was the nominee of the new Progressive Party in the 1948 presidential election.

The oldest son of Henry C. Wallace, who served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1921 to 1924, Wallace was born in rural Iowa in 1888. After graduating from Iowa State University in 1910, he worked as a writer and editor for his family's farm journal, Wallaces' Farmer. He also founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company, a hybrid corn company that became extremely successful. Wallace displayed intellectual curiosity about a wide array of subjects, including statistics and economics, and explored various religious and spiritual movements, including Theosophy. After his father's death in 1924, Wallace drifted away from the Republican Party; he supported Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election.