Editing 1951 Reform Movement (section)

== Background ==

The Republican machine that had controlled Philadelphia since Reconstruction showed increasing signs of decay by the late 1940s. The Vare organization that had dominated early 20th-century politics had fragmented after William Vare's death in 1934. The machine continued to win elections through organization and patronage, but it offered little vision and presided over a city that seemed to be declining while its suburbs prospered. The [[Great Depression in Philadelphia|Depression]] and [[World War II Home Front|World War II]] had changed the city's demographics and politics; the machine's traditional formula of jobs-for-votes seemed inadequate to the challenges of the postwar era. Returning veterans, in particular, demanded better government than the machine provided.<ref name="weigley">{{cite book |last=Weigley |first=Russell F. |title=Philadelphia: A 300-Year History |year=1982 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York}}</ref>

Reform movements had challenged the machine before, but none had achieved lasting success. The 1949 election of Richardson Dilworth as city treasurer—the first Democrat elected to a major city office since the Civil War—suggested that change was possible. Dilworth, a patrician lawyer who had prosecuted corruption cases, combined personal magnetism with fearless attacks on machine misrule. His ally Joseph Clark, another reform-minded lawyer from an old Philadelphia family, planned to run for mayor in 1951. Together, they assembled a reform coalition that would finally break the machine's grip.<ref name="reichley"/>