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Thomas Dewey

How women entrepreneurs reshaped the American economic landscape in the wake of WWII.

When the National Foundation of Women Business Owners announced in May 1999 that women own nearly 40 percent of the nation’s businesses, there was little fanfare or surprise. Americans have become increasingly accustomed to female entrepreneurs as an economic force.

It took place in 1948, and it was orchestrated—with difficulty—by the program director of a faltering Portland, Oregon, radio station. He persuaded two Republican candidates to argue formally about an actual issue with no intervening moderator.

In October 1984 President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Walter F. Mondale came together on the same platform in Louisville, Kentucky, and again in Kansas City, Missouri. Correspondents tossed questions at them; each answered.

United States policy, Henry Wallace said in his spirited challenge to Truman and Dewey in 1948, should be

It was a one-man campaign from the start. Without Henry Agard Wallace there would have been no Progressive Party in 1948. He made it almost a religious revival.

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