--- title: Republican National Convention: The Last Time in Cleveland description: As the Republican National Convention gathers in Cleveland this week, 80 years have passed since the last time the GOP met in the Ohio city. canonical: https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-19T14:35:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:13:00.786Z article:section: History og:title: What Happened the Last Time the Republican Party Convened in Cleveland og:description: It was in 1936 og:url: https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66ec29b4247450fa/69889bc1656a3f1faebcc445/cleveland.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Worker puts up sign for the Republican National Convention C og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Happened the Last Time the Republican Party Convened in Cleveland twitter:description: It was in 1936 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66ec29b4247450fa/69889bc1656a3f1faebcc445/cleveland.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Happened the Last Time the Republican Party Convened in Cleveland  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 19, 2016 2:35 PM UTC  Worker puts up sign for the Republican National Convention Committee Headquarters in the Builders Exchange Building in Cleveland, June 5, 1936. Worker puts up sign for the Republican National Convention Committee Headquarters in the Builders Exchange Building in Cleveland, June 5, 1936.New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 19, 2016 2:35 PM UTC As the [Republican National Convention](http://time.com/4400728/paul-ryan-republican-convention/) gets underway in Cleveland this week, [80 years](http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/03/cleveland%5Frnc%5Fa%5Flook%5Fback%5Fat%5Ft.html#0) have passed since the last time the [GOP](http://time.com/4316824/republican-party-donald-trump-ted-cruz-indiana-convention-primary/) met in the Ohio city. And, though a lot has changed since then, the political carnival atmosphere of a convention has endured. The situation going into the last Cleveland GOP convention was thus: Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, was just finishing out his first term, but while he had begun to combat the Great Depression with his slate of New Deal programs, it wasn’t yet clear whether that momentum would stick. The Supreme Court had already objected to much of the fundamental logic behind the New Deal—a situation that is generally thought to have endured until 1937—and nobody could know that Roosevelt would be reelected a record number of times. The Cleveland convention was a chance for the Republican Party to turn things around. “Out of the swarming lobbies of Cleveland’s three big hotels,” TIME [opined](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-06-22/page/22/), “out of jammed restaurants and air-cooled cocktail bars, poured double-chinned politicians, deep-bosomed matrons wearing badges, pert blondes with white Dutch bonnets tilted upon their ringlets, marcelled brunettes with tipsy red cartwheel hats, broad-shouldered youngsters in panamas, pompous oldsters with sticks, all dressed for their brief appearance in the ‘national arena.’” [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) The main challengers for the nomination were William E. Borah, an Idaho Senator, and Alf Landon, the Governor of Kansas and the eventual nominee. Landon, however, did not attend the convention. As was not unusual at the time, he stayed [at home in Topeka](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-06-22/page/23/) and waited to hear the results. John Hamilton, his campaign manager, was there to read aloud his messages to the convention. Landon was perceived, per TIME’s pre-convention [coverage](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-06-15/page/19/), as the front-runner, but also as a too-liberal threat to Republican ideals. Landon [expressed](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-06-22/page/21/) the idea that, contrary to what the Supreme Court had held, it could be constitutional to establish labor regulations like minimum-wage laws—and that if the court didn’t agree, a constitutional amendment might be necessary. And yet there remained no question that the GOP was against the New Deal. TIME [summed](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-06-22/page/21/) up the “great unwritten plank” of the Republican Party thus: “That the New Deal was a menace to American institutions. That it planned the destruction of individual opportunity in the name of social opportunity. That the planned economy which the New Deal envisioned, the bureaucracy it created, would inevitably lead to some sort of dictatorship.” However, the ways in which Landon’s views might have affected the progress of recovery from the Depression was never to be revealed. Roosevelt won that year in a [landslide](http://time.com/vault/issue/1936-11-09/page/25/). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/"},"headline":"What Happened the Last Time the Republican Party Convened in Cleveland","datePublished":"2016-07-19T14:35:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:13:00.786Z","description":"It was in 1936","url":"https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66ec29b4247450fa/69889bc1656a3f1faebcc445/cleveland.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66ec29b4247450fa/69889bc1656a3f1faebcc445/cleveland.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Worker puts up sign for the Republican National Convention C","caption":"Worker puts up sign for the Republican National Convention C","creditText":"New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4404002/republican-national-convention-cleveland-history/","name":"What Happened the Last Time the Republican Party Convened in Cleveland"}}]}] ```