Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith

By Elisabeth Israels Perry

Book Overview

Most people believe that women's entry into political life is a recent phenomenon. This book shatters that myth. It restores to history the career of one remarkable woman and reveals the vital role that women in the early part of the twentieth century played in American politics--despite their absence from elective or appointive office.
Belle Moskowitz was Alfred E. Smith's closest political adviser during his four terms as Governor of New York, and, as a result, the most powerful woman in American political life during his ascendancy in the Democratic Party throughout the 1920s. She served as Smith's political strategist and campaign manager and was a major force in shaping the social welfare programs for which his administration is best known today; many of these programs were precursors of programs later developed on the national level by Franklin D. Roosevelt under the New Deal.
Moskowitz achieved her prominence without benefit of either family connections or social position resulting from birth or marriage. This book explains how she managed this astonishing feat.
Her role as Governor Smith's adviser followed a career of almost twenty years in settlement work, social reform, and industrial and labor relations. When Smith first ran for governor in 1918, Moskowitz organized the women's vote for him. She later masterminded his nomination for President at the Democratic convention in 1928. Throughout Smith's years in office, Moskowitz worked as his public relations counsellor, a new profession in which she was a pioneer.
Moskowitz's career has not received close attention until now. Since she worked at a secondary level of politics in which her own career never seemed as important as that of the man she served, she discarded many of her private papers; others were lost. Elisabeth Perry, who is Moskowitz's granddaughter, has dug deeply into the public record and the records of Moskowitz's associates, as well as drawing on the reminiscences of Moskowitz's daughter, Perry's own aunt. The result is this riveting portrait--truly a labor of love.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195044266
• ISBN13: 9780195044263
• Release Date: November 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.1" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

A very well crafted political and feminist biography.

In Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics And The Exercise Of Power In The Age Of Alfred E. Smith, Elisabeth Perry presents an impressive work of biographical scholarship on the woman who was four-term Democratic governor of New York and unsuccessful presidential candidate, Alfred E. Smith's closet political advisor. Bell Moskowitz (1877-1933) was the most powerful woman in Democratic party politics during the 1920s and served as Smith's strategist, public relations director, and campaign manager. She was also a major force in shaping the social welfare programs for which his gubernatorial administration is best remembered for today. A well-crafted feminist biography, Belle Moskowitz showcases a pioneering female activist who achieved unprecedented influence in American politics, only to fall into an undeserved obscurity. Belle Moskowitz redresses that historical oversight and is a very highly recommended contribution to women's studies, American political history, and feminist biography collections.