Mother Ella Reeves Bloor

Ella Reeve Bloor was born on Staten Island, on 8th July, 1862. Bloor grew up in New Jersey and after marrying Lucian Ware when she was nineteen, she was a mother of four by 1892.

Bloor became involved in several reform movements including the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and women's suffrage and wrote two books, Three Little Lovers of Nature (1895) and Talks About Authors and Their Work (1899).

In 1897 she joined with Eugene Debs and Victor Berger to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The following year she moved to the more radical Socialist Labor Party that was led by Daniel De Leon. However, in 1902 she became a member of the Socialist Party of America (SPA).

Bloor worked as a trade union organizer and helped during industrial disputes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio and New York. In 1905 she helped a fellow member of the Socialist Party of America, the author, Upton Sinclair, to gather information on the Chicago stockyards. This material eventually appeared in Sinclair's best-selling book, The Jungle.

A leading figure in the Socialist Party of America, she ran several times unsuccessfully for political office, including secretary of state for Connecticut and lieutenant governor of New York.

In 1919 Bloor joined with others to form the Communist Party U.S.A. In 1921 and 1922, she attended the Second International conventions in Moscow and was a member of the party's central committee (1932-48).

After the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Bloor became an advocate of American participation in the Second World War. Later she argued for an early invasion of Europe to create a Second Front.

Ella Reeve Bloor, whose autobiography, We Are Many, was published in 1940, died in Richlandtown on August 10th, 1951.