Presidential Politics, 1928

Wonder about the Al Smith of the white tie Al Smith Dinner presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spoke at the other night? Thanks to the Prelinger Archives of San Francisco, we can show you. ► 

Alfred E. Smith was a three-term governor of New York when he became the Democratic Party's candidate for President in 1928. The first Roman Catholic nominee to the Presidency, Smith was a proponent of the Progressive Movement of the time and ran on an anti-Prohibition platform. His opponent was Herbert Hoover, who rode the wave of the Roaring Twenties economic boom (and a fair amount of anti-Catholic sentiment) to a landslide victory.