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Belle Moskowitz (Born: October 5, 1877 in New York City, New York; Died: January 2, 1933 in New York City, New York) Political advisor to New York Governor and 1928 presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith. Belle Moskowitz became the most politically influential woman in the United States when she served as close political advisor to New York Governor and 1928 presidential candidate Al Smith.

Contents 1 Birth and early years 2 First marriage 3 Second marriage 4 Death 5 External link 6 Resources 7 References in periodicals

Birth and early years

Belle Lindner was born in New York City, the daughter of Isidor Lindner, a watchmaker and Esther Freyer. They were both immigrants from East Prussia in Germany. The sixth of seven children, Belle was educated at Horace Mann, a laboratory school run by the faculty of Teachers College of Columbia University. In 1894 Belle entered Teachers College, but left after one year. She wanted a career on the stage but her parents objected. In 1900 she took up social work at the Educational Alliance, an organization directed by prosperous American Jews of German descent. She directed the settlement program of exhibitions and entertainment.

First marriage

In 1903 she married Charles Israels, an artist and architect who had done volunteer work at the settlement. They had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood. In 1911 Charles succumbed to heart disease at the age of 47. Belle had done volunteer work for the Council of Jewish Women and had been elected an officer in the New York State Conference of Charities and Corrections which focused on a number of social issues: prevention of tuberculosis, legislation to protect children in the work force, funding for parks and playgrounds, and improved housing codes.

Belle Israels learned to be a "can do" reformer; to make visions a reality. In the early 1900s, so called "dancing academies" and "dance halls" were the only easily accessible places for recreation for poor, unsophisticated, young girls of the Lower East Side who worked in the local sweatshops. These dance halls served liquor at the tables and had adjacent rooms ready for rental for what reformers referred to as the "downfall of young women." Reformers had no success in clean up efforts. After a furor was created by newspaper articles about the dance halls, the public anger died down and it was back to business as usual. Israels set out to change all of that. She checked the incorporation certificates of the ôacademiesö to learn the name of the owners. She discovered that the owners included leaders of Tammany Hall and of the community. Instead of going to the newspapers with her information, Belle went to the leaders and agreed to keep their names secret if they saw to it that regulatory legislation was passed and enforced. The New York Times stated, "These laws did more to improve the moral surroundings of young girls than any other single social reform of the period."

Second marriage

In 1911, Belle Israels met her future husband Dr. Henry Moskowitz while working with him on the Factory Commission. The Commission was set up by New York State in reaction to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 people, mostly young women who were trapped in the burning building by locked doors and faulty emergency procedures. She married Dr. Moskowitz in 1914, a year after she was hired by the Dress and Waist Manufacturers Association as an impartial arbitrator to hear grievances by garment workers against employers. Although her recommendations for the improvement of working conditions in the industry were accepted by both sides and implemented, the Association fired Belle Moskowitz in 1916.

By 1918, she was one of the few reformers to promote and support Al Smith for Governor. She sought Smith out to advise him on how to appeal to the newly enfranchised women voters of New York State. She advised Smith to speak to the Women's University Club as if they were "a bunch of businessmen." It was a very successful approach. Her advice in the campaign proved to be of such great value to Smith that, after he won the governorship and she proposed he establish a "Reconstruction Commission" to address all of the state's post-war problems, he not only accepted her proposal but named her the Commission's Executive Secretary. She later named Robert Moses Chief of Staff to reform and streamline the administrative machinery of New York State government, thus launching his career. The Commission's recommendations were enacted over Gov. Smith's three administrations. More and more, over the next ten years, Gov. Smith relied on Belle as a sounding board on policy. Frances Perkins, a member of the Smith administrations, said that "it was advisable to go through her in proposing anything to the Governor." Moskowitz developed many of the ideas which Gov. Smith clothed in legislative action. She knew how to manage new programs and politics with extraordinary success.

Governor Al Smith, a Catholic, was the Democratic Party candidate for President in 1928 and Belle Moskowitz was his campaign manager. She ran a campaign that had to overcome great odds, Smith's religion and his open opposition to Prohibition, and the economic well-being of the country under President Calvin Coolidge. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover. Ex-Governor Smith asked the new Governor of New York State, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to keep Belle on his team as an advisor but Smith was rebuffed. Belle and her son, Josef Israels II, opened a public relations firm after 1928 and she served Smith again when he sought the Democratic Party nomination in 1932. The delegates chose Roosevelt over Smith.

Death

Belle Moskowitz was only 55 when she died in 1933. She left behind a reputation of great political influence. She, a woman who held no elected office, was honored by Governor Smith when he said of her, "She had the greatest brain of anybody I ever knew."

External link

• Elisabeth Israels Perry: Belle Lindner

Resources

• Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, pub Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York. 1974
• Handlin, Oscar, Al Smith and His America, pub. Little Brown and Company, Boston. 1958
• Josephson, Matthew and Hannah, Al Smith: Hero of the Cities: A Political Portrait Drawing on the Papers of Frances Perkins, pub. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1968
• O'Connor, Richard, The First Hurrah: A Biography of Alfred E. Smith, pub. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 1970
• Magill, Frank N., Great Lives From History: American Women Series, Volume 4, Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1985
• Jewish Women's Archive.
• Elisabeth Israels Perry, Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith. 1987.

References in periodicals

• Washington Post; May 30, 1915 "Says Broadway 'Cafe Flies' Seek Other Eugenias Beside Kelly Girl. Mrs. Moskowitz, Noted Reformer, Declares Mothers Have More Need to Chaperon Daughters Afternoons Than Nights -- Points Out That Young Men Worth. Their Salt Are Working Up to 5 P.M. New York, May 29, 1915. That the worst features of the worst East Side dance-halls are to be found at Broadway cafe dances, that these dances are frequented by men who exploit young women as remorselessly as ever did Bowery cadets, and that if necessary the White Way dancing places can be closed up "on the same ground that we closed up the Haymarket" -- there you have the trio of warnings issued by Mrs. Henry Moskowitz, who, as Mrs. Charles T. Israels, was the leader of the campaign to clean up New York dance halls."