Ella Reeve "Mother" Bloor (July 8, 1862 – August 10, 1951) was an American labor organizer and long-time activist in the

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

movements. Bloor is best remembered as one of the top-ranking female functionaries in the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

Biography

Early years

Ella Reeve "Mother" Bloor was born Ella Reeve on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

on July 8, 1862, the daughter of Harriet Amanda (née Disbrow) and Charles Reeve. She grew up in

Bridgeton, New Jersey Bridgeton is a City (New Jersey), city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, Cumberland County, within the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the county seat of Cumberland Countywin to Harold, leaving 4 children: Grace, Helen, Harold and Hamilton Disbrow Ware. Her daughter,

Helen Ware Helen Ware ( Remer; October 15, 1877 – January 25, 1939) was an American stage and film actress. Early years Born to the architect John August Remer and Elinor Maria (née Ware), Ware adopted her mother's maiden name as her professional ...

, was a concert violinist while son,

Harold Ware Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture. He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a ...

, became an agriculture expert as an activist in the

Communist Party of America The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

. One of her other sons was Hamilton D. "Buzz" Ware, an artist and prominent leader in the Village of

Arden, Delaware Arden is a village in New Castle County, Delaware, United States, founded in 1900 as a radical Georgist single-tax community by sculptor Frank Stephens and architect William Lightfoot Price. The village occupies approximately 160 acres, with ...

, where she lived for many years. According to her later FBI files, Bloor met with Dr. M.V. Ball of Philadelphia, a student of Marx and Engels, who converted her to socialism. Ella and Lucien divorced in 1896 and the following year, at about age 35, she married Louis Cohen. In the following three years, the couple had two children: Victor Hugo Cohen and Carl M. Cohen. Ella and Louis Cohen likely divorced by 1906. In 1930, at about age 68, Ella married Andrew Omholt.

Early political career

Ella became involved in several reform movements including the prohibitionist

Women's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far ...

(WCTU) and women's suffrage. She was the author of two books for children, ''Three Little Lovers of Nature'' (1895) and ''Talks About Authors and Their Work'' (1899). Eugene V Debs 1912

In 1897 Ella was a founding member of the

Social Democracy of America The Social Democracy of America (SDA), later known as the Cooperative Brotherhood, was a short lived political party in the United States that sought to combine the planting of an intentional community with political action in order to create a ...

, a new organization established by her friend

Eugene V. Debs Eugene Victor Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party o ...

and

Victor Berger Victor Luitpold Berger (February 28, 1860August 7, 1929) was an Austrian–American socialist politician and journalist who was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party of America and its successor, the Socialist Party of America. Born in ...

— a group which would later emerge as the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(SDP). She later recalled:

"When I joined the Social Democracy I was living in Brooklyn and I had married for the second time. My husband, Louis Cohen, was a socialist. I was pregnant with the first of the two children of that marriage. The railroad men ebs supporterscame to my house so I could continue to act as ocalsecretary.

"But a new disappointment was in store for me. The Social Democracy, I soon discovered, was a utopian scheme. Debs' plan was to form an ideal colony out West to show by example that socialism could work. From the outset I told the members of my group that this colonization scheme was unsound, not real socialism at all. I stayed with it for a while because of my loyalty to Debs, and because this was the nearest thing I had yet found to a socialist movement.

"Debs set up a paper in Chicago called '' The Social Democrat.'' At his request I wrote a children's column for it. The children answered the appeals of Debs and his colonization committee by sending me money. I felt it was unfair to collect money for something that did not yet exist. People were already selling out businesses to join the colony. A national convention was held in Chicago une 7–11, 1898and our local sent delegates. Among them was my husband who still felt that anything Debs was in must be all right. I agreed to withhold final judgment until the delegates returned. When they came back and reported that plans to establish the colony would continue, I resigned. I simply could not stay with anything so unscientific.

Shortly after her resignation from the Social Democracy, Ella attended a meeting in New York of the

Socialist Labor Party The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 192 ...

, at which editor of the party newspaper

Daniel DeLeon Daniel De Leon (; December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914), alternatively spelt Daniel de León, was a Curaçaoan-American socialist newspaper editor, politician, Marxist theoretician, and trade union organizer. He is regarded as the forefather of ...

was the speaker: Daniel-DeLeon-1902

"He was small and slight and prematurely gray, and spoke very deliberately and convincingly.

"The Socialist Labor Party was a revolutionary party in those days and DeLeon, its leader, was a brilliant theoretician and speaker, a courageous fighter against capitalism.... I was impressed with his analysis of the evils of the capitalist system, and of the fallacy of isolated socialist colonies as a way of achieving socialism. I felt that at last here was scientific socialism and joined the SLP.

"Daniel DeLeon and I became friends.... I became very much interested in the New York Labor News Company — the first organization that published revolutionary books and pamphlets in English on a large scale. Its manager was Julien Pierce. Together we proofread the pamphlets translated by DeLeon, often having to reconstruct the English, a greater task than we ever let him know."

Ella was elected to the governing General Executive Board of the

Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance – commonly abbreviated STLA or ST&LA – was a revolutionary socialist trade union, labor union in the United States closely linked to the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), which existed from 1895 until becomin ...

(ST&LA), the SLP's trade union affiliate. She was also the ST&LA's organizer for

Essex County, New Jersey Essex County is located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey, and is one of the centrally located counties in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the county was the state's second-most populous county,< ...

, and was sent to

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

by the organization in an effort to organize street car workers there. Ella recounted her growing disaffection with the SLP in her 1940 memoir:

"Gradually the defects of the SLP were brought home to me. I found many workers antagonistic because I was organizing a rival union. The STLA was weakening the AF of L /nowiki>American Federation of Labor">American_Federation_of_Labor.html" ;"title="/nowiki>American Federation of Labor">/nowiki>American Federation of Labor/nowiki> by drawing off its more radical elements and leaving the reactionaries in control, and was itself organized on too narrow and sectarian a basis to accomplish anything. Furthermore, the SLP as a political party had little real influence because DeLeon was against taking part in the immediate struggles of the workers.... I began very early to see the importance of a united trade union movement, and felt that Socialists should work within the AF of L. I felt that DeLeon understood Marx very well abstractly but knew little about the practical needs of the labor movement.

"The last time I talked with DeLeon I told him I was moving to Philadelphia and was willing to accept the secretaryship of the SLP local there, which had been offered me, but I could not go along with their principles wholeheartedly. As a good friend of mine, DeLeon accepted what I said without anger, but would not change his methods."

Soon after her arrival in Philadelphia, a state convention of the SLP decided to leave the party en masse to form a new organization in the nether region between Morris Hillquit">Morris Hillquit's dissident so-called "Kangaroo" faction which broke away in 1899 and DeLeon's hardline SLP. Ella opposed this new organization, which called itself "The Logical Center" and included Lucien Sanial, a former top official in the SLP. Ella had been watching with interest the formation of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901 and decided to leave her new Pennsylvania comrades to rejoin her friend Gene Debs as a member of his new organization. In subsequent years, Bloor worked as a trade union organizer and helped during industrial disputes in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. She organized strikes across a wide range of industries including miners, hatters, steelworkers, and needle-workers. In 1905 Bloor helped a fellow member of the Socialist Party of America,

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

, gather information on the Chicago stock yards. Ella partnered with colleague Richard Bloor, and the last name stuck, though the pair were never married. Her work and pen-name eventually appeared in Sinclair's best-selling book, ''

The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a novel by American author and muckraking-journalist Upton Sinclair, known for his efforts to expose corruption in government and business in the early 20th century. In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information ...

''. Bloor ran unsuccessfully for political office several times under the Socialist Party of America, including secretary of state for

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

in 1908 where she was the first woman to run for state office and

Lieutenant Governor of New York The lieutenant governor of New York is a Constitution of New York, constitutional office in the executive branch of the Government of the State of New York. It is the second highest-ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governo ...

1918 The ceasefire that effectively ended the World War I, First World War took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year. Also in this year, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50–100 million people wor ...

. In 1938 she ran for Governor of Pennsylvania under the American Communist Party.

Communist period

Ella Reeve Bloor was one of the founders of the

Communist Labor Party of America The Communist Labor Party of America (CLPA) was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America. Although a leg ...

, which stemmed from the

Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party The Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party was an organized faction within the Socialist Party of America in 1919 which served as the core of the dual communist parties which emerged in the fall of that year—the Communist Party of America a ...

. In 1921 and 1922, Bloor attended the second conventions of the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

in Moscow. She was also a delegate to the founding convention of the

Red International of Labor Unions The Red International of Labor Unions (, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern (), was an international body established by the Communist International (Comintern) with the aim of coordinating communist activities within trade unions. Formally ...

in July 1921, at which she used the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

"Emmons" and voted on the basis of credentials issued by three locals of the

International Association of Machinists The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is an AFL–CIO/ CLC trade union representing over 600,000 workers as of 2024 in more than 200 industries with most of its membership in the United States and Canada. Origi ...

. Upon her return from the Soviet Union, Bloor hitchhiked throughout the United States while writing articles for the ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in Chicago founded by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists. Publication began in 1924. It generally reflected the prevailing views of members of the Communist Party USA (CPU ...

''. Bloor was a member of the Central Committee of the

from 1932 to 1948 where she organized tirelessly. During this time, she toured the Midwest, organizing farmers, leading farmers strikes, and giving speeches. Many of these speeches were focused on women's rights, especially suffrage and its connection to their rights as laborers. At the end of 1937 she returned to Russia for three months. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Bloor became an advocate of American participation in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Later she argued for an early invasion of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

to create a Second Front.

Death and legacy

Ella Reeve Bloor died on August 10, 1951, in Richlandtown, Pennsylvania. She is buried in Harleigh Cemetery in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...

. Today, Ella Reeve Bloor is remembered as one of the most prominent socialist feminists in United States history. She gave countless speeches and lectures focusing on topics of women's suffrage and mobilization as workers, often stressing the “direct connection between the ballot and our work." For some, Bloor echoed the voice of working women in the early twentieth century by vocalizing the intersection of socialism and suffrage. She argued that because working women were marginalized by the law as it was, their only form of political power was through protest which frequently proved dangerous and ineffective. She was arrested 36 times during her career. She believed that women needed the right to vote if they hoped to have a say in changing laws and therefore improve their working conditions and lives in general. Bloor's autobiography, ''We Are Many'', was published in 1940 and served as the basis for the

Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer, songwriter, and composer widely considered to be one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American Left, A ...

song, "

1913 Massacre "1913 Massacre" is a Protest song, topical ballad written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie, and recorded and released in 1945 for Moses Asch, Moses Asch's Folkways Records, Folkways Record label, label. The song originally appeared on ''Stru ...

." ''Life'' photographed Bloor's public funeral reception in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

. Alice Neel's 1951 painting of her funeral reception, "The Death of Mother Bloor," shows her in front of a line of mourners passing by her

bier A bier is a stand on which a corpse, coffin, or casket containing a corpse is placed to lie in state or to be carried to its final disposition.''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (American Heritage Publishing Co., In ...

. It was included in the 2021 Alice Neel

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Her granddaughter was actress

Herta Ware Herta Ware (June 9, 1917 – August 15, 2005) was an American actress and activist. Early life Ware was born Herta Schwartz in Wilmington, Delaware. Her mother, Helen Ware, was a musician and violin teacher. Her father, Laszlo Schwartz, was ...

who was married to

Will Geer Will Geer (born William Aughe Ghere; March 9, 1902 – April 22, 1978) was an American actor, musician, and social activist who was active in labor organizing and communist movements in New York City and Southern California in the 1930s and 1940 ...

from 1934 to 1954.

Works

;Children's books
''Three Little Lovers of Nature.''
Chicago: A. Flanagan, 1895.
''Talks About Authors and their Work.''
Chicago: A. Flanagan, 1899. ;Political titles * ''Women in the Soviet Union.'' New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937. *
We Are Many: An Autobiography
'' New York: International Publishers, 1940.

References

External links

Ella Reeve Bloor papers
at the

Sophia Smith Collection The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history. General One of the largest recognized repositories of manuscripts, a ...

, Smith College Special Collections {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloor, Ella Reeve 1862 births 1951 deaths American communists American Marxists Women Marxists American women trade unionists Burials at Harleigh Cemetery, Camden Communist Party USA politicians Socialist Party of America politicians from Connecticut Socialist Party of America politicians from New York (state) Socialist Party of America politicians from Pennsylvania American socialist feminists People from Bridgeton, New Jersey Activists from Staten Island American suffragists