Milton Jerrold Shapp (born Milton Jerrold Shapiro; June 25, 1912 – November 24, 1994) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 40th governor of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

from 1971 to 1979 and the first Jewish governor of Pennsylvania. He was also the first governor of Pennsylvania to be eligible for, and re-elected to, consecutive four-year terms per the 1968

Pennsylvania Constitution The Constitution of Pennsylvania is the supreme law within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. All acts of the General Assembly, the governor, and each governmental agency are subordinate to it. Since 1776, Pennsylvania's Constitution has undergone ...

Early life

Shapp was born Milton Jerrold Shapiro in Cleveland, Ohio, to Aaron Shapiro, a businessman and staunch

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

, and Eva (née Smelsey) Shapiro, a Democrat and outspoken suffragette. His family was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, and all of his grandparents had emigrated from

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

. He attended the Case School of Applied Science. (In 1948, the Case School of Applied Science was renamed the Case Institute of Technology and in 1967 it federated with Western Reserve University to form Case Western Reserve University.) He graduated in 1933 with a degree in electrical engineering. Unfortunately, the effects of the Great Depression ravaged America, and Shapp, unable to find work in the engineering field, worked as a coal truck driver. In 1936, he took a job selling electronic parts and moved to Pennsylvania. It was during this time that he changed his name from Shapiro to Shapp to avoid prejudice, even though he continued to identify openly as being Jewish.

Military and business careers

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Shapp served as an officer in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

Signal Corps in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. After World War II, he moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and founded

Jerrold Electronics Jerrold Electronics was an American provider of cable television equipment, including subscriber converter boxes, distribution network equipment (amplifiers, multitap outlets), and headend equipment in the United States. History The company was ...

Corporation, a pioneer in the

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

industry, using a $500 loan subsidized by the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

. Jerrold became one of America's first providers of coaxial cable TV systems in 1948.

became a major player in the television industry, and Shapp himself amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune. Shapp sold his interest in

in 1967 to the

General Instrument General Instrument (GI) was an American electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. They formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer. During the 1950s, ...

Company to concentrate on politics. The Jerrold name, however, continued to survive on cable TV reception equipment into the 1990s when it became obsolete when General Instrument (which acquired Jerrold in the interim) went out of business in 1997.

Entrance into politics

Shapp entered the world of politics in

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Jan ...

by campaigning for

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

for

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

. Shapp is "credited with promoting the idea that eventually led to the creation of the Peace Corps." After Kennedy was elected President, Shapp served as an advisor to the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F ...

as well as consultant to the Secretary of Commerce.

Pennsylvania gubernatorial elections

In 1966, he sought the Democratic nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania. The party in Pennsylvania was deeply divided that year and the party organization endorsed Robert P. Casey for the office. Shapp's large personal fortune allowed him to run an independent campaign, and he capitalized on an anti-establishment mood among Democrats and won the Democratic primary by about 50,000 votes with a slogan portraying him as "The Man Against The Machine."

Campaign against Penn Central

At the time, Shapp was heavily involved in unsuccessfully trying to stop the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the New York Central. He invested millions of dollars of his own money into the effort, traveling throughout Pennsylvania to convince local officials to oppose the merger. He pushed the issue into the federal courts and testified against the proposed merger in front of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The issue was prominent during his first run for governor in 1966. In the process, he made several enemies. Stuart T. Saunders, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, opposed Shapp at every turn. Friendly with the Lyndon Johnson administration, Saunders influenced Washington Democrats to sabotage the Shapp campaign.

Annenberg's opposition

Walter Annenberg Walter Hubert Annenberg (March 13, 1908 – October 1, 2002) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and diplomat. Annenberg owned and operated Triangle Publications, which included ownership of ''The Philadelphia Inquirer' ...

, owner and publisher of ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'' and major shareholder of the Pennsylvania Railroad, used the pages of ''The Inquirer'' to cast doubt on Shapp's candidacy. The opposition from Annenberg-owned media and the Democratic political establishment helped contribute to Shapp's narrow loss that year to

Raymond P. Shafer.

Governor of Pennsylvania

As the

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...

election approached, Governor Shafer was term-limited under existing Pennsylvania law, which prohibited self-succession by him, and could neither run for re-election nor take advantage of the amended Commonwealth Constitution ratified in 1968. Furthermore, a fiscal crisis during his term plunged his popularity to a low point, hurting Republican chances of retaining the office. Shapp again sought the Democratic nomination and again defeated Robert P. Casey to win the Democratic nomination. Of his nemeses from the last election, Walter Annenberg had sold the ''Inquirer'' to Knight Newspapers, Inc. a year earlier prior to his appointment as Ambassador to the United Kingdom, while Stuart Saunders had vanished from the political scene as Penn Central entered bankruptcy in 1970. This time Shapp won the election to become Governor of Pennsylvania over Republican

Raymond J. Broderick Raymond Joseph "Ray" Broderick (May 29, 1914 – August 6, 2000) was an American jurist and politician from the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served ...

, the then incumbent lieutenant governor and later a well-respected federal judge, by over 500,000 votes.

Gubernatorial reforms

During Shapp's time in office, he solved a financial crisis by instituting Pennsylvania's flat, no-deductions income tax. He also signed into law the bill creating the

Pennsylvania Lottery The Pennsylvania Lottery is operated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Lottery was created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly on August 26, 1971; two months later, Henry Kaplan was appointed as its first executive director. The Penns ...

and instituted major reforms for the

Pennsylvania Turnpike The Pennsylvania Turnpike (Penna Turnpike or PA Turnpike) is a toll highway operated by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A controlled-access highway, it runs for across the state. The turnpike's w ...

. The Governor oversaw new consumer rights legislation, welfare reform, and insurance reform including the controversial decision to enact

no-fault insurance In its broadest sense, no-fault insurance is any type of insurance contract under which the insured party is indemnified by their own insurance company for losses, regardless of the source of the cause of loss. In this sense, it is no different ...

legislation in the state. In the wake of the Watergate crisis, he established a sweeping Sunshine Law for the state, the most comprehensive of any state at the time. He also faced a massive recovery effort after

Hurricane Agnes Hurricane Agnes in 1972 was the costliest hurricane to hit the United States at the time, causing an estimated $2.1 billion in damage. The hurricane's death toll was 128. The effects of Agnes were widespread, from the Caribbean to Canada, ...

caused widespread

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...

in the state causing the death of 48 Pennsylvanians. The flooding was so bad and so rapid that Governor Shapp and his wife, Muriel, had to be rescued from the gubernatorial mansion in

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...

by boat as flood waters from the Susquehanna River inundated the building.

Second term

During the Shafer gubernatorial administration, the Commonwealth Constitution had been amended to change the permitted lengths of governors' administrations from one term to the present-day maximum of two consecutive terms at a time, with at least one term required between such gubernatorial administrations. As Shapp was not term-limited, he successfully sought re-election as governor, winning by a large majority over his Republican opponent,

Drew Lewis Andrew Lindsay Lewis Jr. (November 3, 1931 – February 10, 2016), generally known as Drew Lewis, was an American businessman and politician from the state of Pennsylvania. He was United States Secretary of Transportation in the first portion ...

, in the election of 1974. He set his sights on the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

and ran unsuccessfully for the 1976 Democratic nomination for president, but failed to carry even his home state of Pennsylvania in the primary elections, and dropped out after an 89-day campaign. After that defeat, he settled into a lame-duck term as governor, enacting no further significant reforms. He opposed

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

and vetoed an attempt to restore it in Pennsylvania in 1974. The legislature, however, overrode the veto and reinstated the death penalty.Death Penalty in Pennsylvania - Statistics & History of Capital Punishment in PA
/ref>

Later years and death

In his last years, Shapp suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and died from complications of it on November 24, 1994, at the age of 82. After his death, the

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

corporation established the Milton Jerrold Shapp Memorial Scholarship Fund, an engineering scholarship, in Shapp's honor. Motorola was the successor corporation to

, the company that had acquired Shapp's firm in 1967.

References

External links

Milton J. Shapp Papers
at the Pennsylvania State Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Shapp, Milton 1912 births 1994 deaths Jewish American military personnel American manufacturing businesspeople United States Army personnel of World War II Businesspeople from Cleveland Case Western Reserve University alumni Deaths from dementia in Pennsylvania Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Democratic Party governors of Pennsylvania Jewish American state governors of the United States Politicians from Cleveland United States Army officers Candidates in the 1976 United States presidential election Jewish American candidates for President of the United States 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American politicians 20th-century American Jews