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.Belle Linder was born in New York City, the daughter of Isador Linder, a watchmaker and Ester Freyer Linder. They were both immigrants from 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 stage but her parents objected. In 1900 she took up social work at the Education Alliance, an organization directed by prosperous American Jews of German descent. She directed the settlement program of exhibitions and entertainment.
In 1903 she married Charles Isreals, an artist and architect who had done volunteer work at the settlement. They had three children. In 1912 Charles committed suicide. Belle went to work for the Council of Jewish Women and was associated with 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.
Moskowitz learned to be a "can do" reformer; to make dreams a reality. Between 1908 and 1913 so called "dancing academies" were the only easily accessible places for weekday 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. Moskowitz 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."
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 1913, the year that she hired by the Dress and Waist Manufactures Association as an impartial arbitrator to hear grievances by garment workers against employers. Her recommendations for the improvement of working conditions in the industry were accepted by both sides and implemented.
By 1917, she was one of the few reformers to promote and support Al Smith. Smith had sought her advise in appealing to newly enfranchised women voters. 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 advise in the campaign proved to be of great value to Smith. She became Chief of Staff on the Reconstruction Committee to reform and streamline the administrative machinery of New York State government. Its recommendations were enacted over the three administrations of Gov. Al Smith. 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.
Gov. Al Smith, a Catholic, was the Democratic Party candidate for President in the year 1928 and Belle Moskowitz was his campaign manager. She ran a campaign that had to overcome great odds. Gov. Smith's religion and the economic well being of the country under Pres. Hoover. Smith could not overcome those two issues and lost to Hoover. Ex Gov. 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 husband 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.
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 Gov. Smith when he said of her, "She had the greatest brain of anybody I ever knew."
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Fall Semester 1998. Last modified: December 17, 1998