From collection Candidates
Ella Reeve Bloor was a Socialist party activist. In 1910 she ran for the office of Secretary of State in Connecticut on the Socialist ticket. She was the first woman to do so. She also ran for Governor of Pennsylvania, and, in 1918, for Lieutenant Governor of New York. She was defeated in each of these campaigns. In addition to her life long activities as a socialist (and later communist),Bloor aided the temperance and woman suffrage causes. Bloor was a radical labor organizer and, later in her life, a founding member of the Communist Labor party. She was a longtime friend of activist and presidential candidate Eugene Debs. Bloor was a columnist for socialist and communist newspapers. She also wrote two children's books and a memoir, We Are Many. In 1905-6 she assisted Upton Sinclair in his investigation of the Chicago meat packing industry. Sinclair published the findings in his subsequently famous book, The Jungle. Bloor was married three times and had a number of children.
