Flip to "Hunger marchers" leaving Philadelphia's Reyburn Plaza for the state capital to demand relief from the Pennsylvania State Legislature, summer 1936.Close Window
Credit: Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
In the summer of 1936 more than 2,000 protestors from eastern Pennsylvania counties descended on Harrisburg and occupied the capitol building, refusing to leave until the state legislature passed $100million in emergency appropriations for relief. When the state senate failed to do so, angry observers in the balcony booed and jeered, then lowered themselves by rope onto the floor of the senate, where state police attempted to push them out of doors.
