The First Democratic Convention on Live TV Was the Last Not to be Air-Conditioned

(via Atlas Obscura)  The 1948 presidential campaign, which would later result in one of the most famously wrong newspaper headlines in American history, was complicated. For the first time ever, three candidates—Democrat Harry Truman, Republican Thomas Dewey, and Progressive Henry Wallace—were nominated at conventions in the same city: Philadelphia. The Philadelphia conventions that year were the last time political conventions were held in a venue that didn’t have air-conditioning.  If the convention was to be televised, networks told convention organizers, the dais would need to be lit up. And, because of the primitive camera technology of 1948, that meant highly lit up. As a consequence, convention speakers, many of whom could be seen with visible sweat stains, probably had it the worst of anyone.