Making blue-collar conservatism: Race, class, and politics in Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia

Timothy James Lombardo, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation examines post-World War II Philadelphia and the white ethnic, blue-collar supporters of Frank Rizzo in order to explain the rise of "blue-collar conservatism" in modern America. Rizzo was a polarizing figure in the 1960s and 1970s, but he commanded intense loyalty. He first rose to power as commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department in the 1960s. Despite presiding over a police force with a nationally recognized reputation for heavy-handedness, he became a hero to the Philadelphians that clamored for "law and order." In 1971, he rode that popularity to his first mayoral victory. Showing how the supporters of the Philadelphia police led to the rise of Frank Rizzo, my work offers the first bottom-up account of the law and order politics that were so central to the rise of modern conservatism. Continuing with an examination of blue-collar Philadelphia during Rizzo's mayoralty in the 1970s, this dissertation shows how he maintained his base of support by opposing public housing, school busing, affirmative action and other programs that he and his supporters deemed unearned advantages for nonwhites. Tracing white, blue-collar Philadelphians' engagement with the interwoven politics of urban law enforcement, education, equal employment opportunity, and open housing, this work explains how the politics of law and order and opposition to federal civil rights policies combined with the politics of race, class, and ethnicity to create Rizzo's popularity. Placing blue-collar whites' opposition to civil rights era policymaking in the context of the worsening urban crisis, this dissertation complicates the familiar "backlash" narrative of working-class conservatism by highlighting how the mutually reinforcing politics of race, space, class privilege, and gender functioned in the development of blue-collar culture and ideologies. I argue that Rizzo and his supporters signified not only a broader grassroots shift in American politics, but that the development of blue-collar conservatism represented an understudied variant of populist conservatism that did not immediately reject welfare state liberalism. Instead, white ethnic and blue-collar Philadelphians' began selectively rejecting government entitlements based upon culturally defined ideas of earned privilege and unearned advantage. This dissertation, finally, explains how urban, blue-collar whites like those in Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia joined the conservative movement that reached fruition in the 1980s.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Gabin, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American history|History

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