From collection Candidates
Rose Pastor Stokes was one of the most famous women socialists of the early twentieth century. Born in Russia she immigrated to the United States with her family, arriving in 1890s. As a young teenager she began working in the cigar factories of Cleveland. Pastor began writing advice columns for young women in local Yiddish newspapers. An opportunity to write for a more national paper took her to New York in 1903. Two years later, she married fellow socialist, and scion of one of America's wealthiest families, James Graham Phelps Stokes. Together they would move in radical and socialist circles over the next decade, until they each moved in separate poltiical directions. As a speaker on socialist and feminist issues Rose was one in high demand. In 1918 the Socialist Party nominated her for New York State Assembly. By that time she was under indictment for her speeches and dissent against World War I, and had been sentenced to a ten year prison sentence. After the war the judgement was set aside By the mid 1920s Rose had retired from public lecturing, but remained committed to the Communist Party. She and Stokes divorced in 1925. Rose Pastor died in 1933 from breast cancer.
