Construction of the Inaugural Stand on the Capitol Steps (1935)

George H. Earle III narrowly won the Pennsylvania governorship in 1934. The state had been a Republican stronghold for decades. At the time, only one other Democrat had been governor since the Civil War; 1856 was the last year a Democratic president carried Pennsylvania; and the state was one of only six that Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost in the 1932 presidential election.