Belle Moskowitz, reformer
One hundred years ago today … Belle Moskowitz, reformer, was unafraid to speak her mind to the New York Times.
Moskowitz was serving as secretary of Governor Al Smith’s State Reconstruction Commission (which we have earlier reported on in our February 9 post about Robert Moses), which had introduced a set of initiatives regarding housing, public health, and government accountability “inspired by policies long cherished among progressives, and, more recently, by the success of sikilar institutions during the wartime emergency.” When, on April 20, 1920, the Republican opposition to the reform movement introduced a watered-down version of the Commision’s suggestions, Moskowitz condemned the bill as “trying to confuse the issue,” and making “a political football of the Governor’s reconstruction plan.”
According to Moskowitz’s biographer Elisabeth Isreals Perry, “This was one of the rare times Mokowitz vented her anger. Otherwise, she worked quietly throughout 1920 to realize the Reconstruction Commission’s goals” (138).
Belle Moskowitz in May of 1920, in a photo that belies the seriousness of her life and work, christening the freighter S.S. Sutermco in the Newark Bay Shipyard. Courtesy Connecticut College. The Linda Lear Center for Special Collections and Archives / Collections.
Source: Perry, Elizabeth Israels. Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987.