The December 26th, 1947 blizzard which struck the eastern seaboard of the U.S. saw, In New York, 25.8 inches of snow fall in less than twenty-four hours. It was the worst storm since the Great Blizzard of 1888.

Ocean liners were unable to move. Railroad stations were filled with stranded people. Importing and exporting out of New York ground to a halt, and the Nation’s reliance on truck transportation was immediately evident.

A fuel strike ensued.

By the morning of December 31st, many people had gone without some combination of a newspaper, fresh bread, milk, fuel, or coal for almost a week. Fire officials declared it a state of emergency. Mayor O’Dwyer took the first available plane home from his holiday vacation in southern California.

The radio industry was struck as well. On January 1st, James C. Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians, instituted a nationwide ban on music recording.

The ban was aimed at a provision in the Taft-Hartley Act which criminalized a union's collection of money from members for services that are not performed or not to be performed. It made the AFM's Unemployed Musicians slush fund illegal.

To make matters worse, week-over-week consumer inflation was reaching highs not seen in modern U.S. history.

As President Truman began his full-scale re-election bid, his National approval rating sat at 32%. New York’s Republican governor Thomas Dewey was positioning himself as the most serious challenger for the Presidency. While in the south, Strom Thurmond was moving towards running on what would come to be known as a “Dixiecrat” ticket.