View source for Sol Bloom

{{Short description|American politician}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2014}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Sol Bloom
| image = Sol Bloom 1923.jpg
| office = Member of the<br>[[U.S. House of Representatives]]<br>from [[New York (state)|New York]]
| constituency = {{ushr|NY|19|c}} (1923–45)<br>{{ushr|NY|20|c}} (1945–49)
| term_start   = March 4, 1923<ref name=January>Bloom was elected on January 30, 1923, for the term beginning March 4, 1923.  The ''Biographical Directory of the United States Congress'' incorrectly states the beginning of his term as his election date.</ref>
| term_end     = March 7, 1949
| preceded     =[[Walter M. Chandler]]
| succeeded    = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr.]]
| office3 = Chairman of the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs]]
| term_start3 = January 3, 1949
| term_end3 = March 7, 1949
| predecessor3 = [[Charles A. Eaton]]
| successor3 = [[John Kee]]
| term_start4 = January 3, 1939
| term_end4 = January 3, 1947
| predecessor4 = [[Samuel Davis McReynolds]]
| successor4 = [[Charles A. Eaton]]
| birth_date = {{birth date|1870|03|09}}
| birth_place = [[Pekin, Illinois]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1949|03|07|1870|03|09|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.
| party = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
| spouse = {{Marriage|Evelyn Hechheimer|1897|1941|end=died}}
| children = 1
| occupation=
| residence=
| alma_mater=
}}

'''Sol Bloom''' (March 9, 1870{{spaced ndash}}March 7, 1949) was an American song-writer and politician from [[New York City]] who began his career as an entertainment impresario and [[sheet music]] publisher in [[Chicago]]. He served fourteen terms in the [[United States House of Representatives]] from the [[West Side (Manhattan)|West Side]] of [[Manhattan]], from 1923 until his death in 1949.

==Early life==
Bloom was born March 9, 1870, in [[Pekin, Illinois]], to [[Polish-Jewish]] immigrants who soon moved to [[San Francisco]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/e3e670d93b49204e13c15d899f3ce74b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1816616|title = Bloom, Sol. Autobiography (Book Review)| website=[[ProQuest]] }}</ref>  He was introduced to theater production in his early teens, then became a theater manager, staging boxing matches featuring [[James J. Corbett|"Gentleman Jim" Corbett]]. Seeking ever more spectacular attractions, he attended the [[Exposition Universelle (1889)]] in [[Paris, France|Paris]], where he was particularly taken with the dancers and acrobats of the "Algerian Village," somewhat representative of France's [[Algeria]]n colony.

Bloom could converse sparingly in four or five European languages, and was adept in sign language.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/349858736/?match=1|title = Chicago Tribune, June 21st, 1893 (newspaper clipping)| website=[[Newspapers]] }}</ref>

==Chicago World's Fair==
Bloom established his reputation in 1893 at the age of 23 while developing the mile-long [[Midway Plaisance]] at the [[World's Columbian Exposition]] in Chicago. The Midway Plaisance offered enticing games and exhibitions presented by private vendors, removed from the more conservative [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux-Arts]] splendor of the official exposition and arranged around its "Court of Honor". After initially entrusting the midway to a Harvard anthropology professor, the committee turned to Bloom, whose "Midway" was so successful that the term resided henceforth in the American lexicon. At the "Street in Cairo", the North African [[belly dance]] was reinvented as the "[[hootchy-kootchy]] dance" to a tune made up by Bloom, "[[The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid]]", whose century-old lyrics had traditionally been sung by young boys: "O they don't wear pants/on the sunny side of France"; "There's a place in France/where the women wear no pants"; "...where the naked ladies dance", etc. Bloom did not copyright the tune, which he'd conceived on a piano at the Press Club of Chicago. In her book ''Striptease, The Untold Story of the Girlie Shows'', Rachel Shteir stated that Bloom made money equal to that of U.S. President [[Grover Cleveland]] from his exotic dance shows.<ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=qKzbHAAACAAJ&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref><ref>https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/the-origins-of-the-striptease-and-burlesque/</ref> Bloom also published and promoted “[[Coon, Coon, Coon]]”, one of the most famous entries in the [[coon song]] genre.

Bloom's role in helping to develop the fair had been at the behest of Mayor [[Carter Harrison III]], who [[Assassination of Carter Harrison III|was assassinated]] only days before the exposition closed. Bloom then rose in stature in Chicago's tough [[1st ward, Chicago|first ward]] among the Democratic party's bosses [["Bathhouse" John Coughlin]] and [["Hinky Dink" Kenna]]. Soon, he became Chicago branch manager of M. Witmark & Sons, the largest publisher of [[sheet music]] in the United States, and by 1896 he was publishing under his own name and introducing photolithographs to make the scores more visually appealing. In 1897 he married Evelyn Hechheimer and settled in a fashionable district on South Prairie Avenue, billing himself as "Sol Bloom, the Music Man".<ref>Sol Bloom, ''The Autobiography of Sol Bloom'', New York: Putnam House, 1948.</ref> At the turn of the 20th century, he was awarded, to much fanfare, the first musical copyright of the new century for "I Wish I Was in Dixie Land Tonight" by Raymond A. Browne.

==Move to New York and politics==

In 1903 he moved to New York City, where he dabbled in real estate and expanded his national chain of [[department store]] music departments. In New York, he sold [[Victor Talking Machine]]s. Bloom soon switched his political affiliation from Republican to the Democrats' [[Tammany Hall]], so that when Representative-elect [[Samuel Marx (New York politician)|Samuel Marx]] of New York's 19th Congressional District died in 1922, Bloom was invited to run and won the usually Republican Upper West Side district of Manhattan by 145 votes. He represented the district until his death in 1949.

A confidential 1943 analysis of the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]] by [[Isaiah Berlin]] for the British [[Foreign Office]] stated that<ref name="hachey1973">{{cite journal | url=http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/singles/bib139a/bib139a.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021185357/http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/singles/bib139a/bib139a.pdf | archive-date=2013-10-21 | title=American Profiles on Capitol Hill: A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943 | author=Hachey, Thomas E. | journal=Wisconsin Magazine of History |date=Winter 1973–1974 | volume=57 | issue=2 | pages=141–153 | jstor=4634869}}</ref>

{{blockquote|(The committee's) main weakness is probably the leadership of Sol Bloom, whose chairmanship of the committee is due solely to the processes of seniority, and certainly not to any outstanding ability or knowledge of foreign affairs, but this is made up for by his blind loyalty to the President's policies ... Has been in Congress since 1923. Is politically friendly toward the British and has been a consistent supporter of F.D.R.'s foreign policies. A Jew, who was elected mostly by Jewish and foreign elements in his New York district, he tends, therefore, to be Europe-conscious and strongly anti-Nazi. He is of the easy-going, superficial, glad-handish type rather than a man of outstanding intellect; intensely patriotic in an emotional way despite his leaning towards internationalism. He helped to pilot the original [[Lend-Lease Act]] through the committee, and introduced the Act to extend Lend-Lease for one year. Age 73.}}

In Congress Bloom oversaw celebration of the George Washington Bicentennial (1932) and presided over the U.S. Constitution Sesquicentennial Exposition (1937). He chaired the [[United States House Committee on International Relations|House Committee on Foreign Affairs]] beginning in 1939. A strong supporter of [[Zionism]], Bloom was a delegate to the [[United Nations Conference on International Organization|convention]] in San Francisco that established the United Nations.  The first words of the [[Preamble to the United Nations Charter]], "We, the Peoples of the United Nations .. ."  were suggested by Bloom.<ref name="isbn0-8133-3275-3">{{cite book |author=Schlesinger, Stephen E. |title=Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations: A Story of Superpowers, Secret Agents, Wartime Allies and Enemies, and Their Quest for a Peaceful World |publisher=Westview, Perseus Books Group |location=Cambridge, MA |year=2004 |isbn=0-8133-3275-3 |page=237}}</ref>

In January 1946, Bloom represented the US at the first meeting of the [[UN General Assembly]] in London. He called his success in persuading a majority of the Assembly to allow the new United Nations organization to assume the finances of the earlier [[United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]] "the supreme moment" of his life.<ref name="url1945_bloom">{{cite web |url=http://www.patrickkillough.com/international-un/1945_bloom.html |title=Representative Sol Bloom |access-date=April 27, 2008}}</ref>

== In the House of Representatives ==
Bloom was the chairman of the [[House Foreign Affairs Committee]] from 1939 to 1947 and then again in 1949, during critical periods of American foreign policy. In the run-up to World War II, he took charge of high-priority legislation for the [[Franklin Roosevelt#Foreign policy, 1937–1941|Roosevelt Administration]], including authorization for [[Lend Lease]] in 1940. He oversaw Congressional approval of the United Nations and of the [[United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]] (UNRRA), which worked to assist millions of displaced people in Europe. He was a member of the American delegation at the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 and at the [[Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance|Rio Conference]] in 1947.

In coordination with America's mainstream Jewish leadership, especially [[World Jewish Congress]] executives [[Stephen Samuel Wise|Stephen Wise]] and [[Nachum Goldman]], Bloom  strongly opposed and obstructed the [[Hillel Kook]]-led [[Emergency Committee for the Rescue of European Jewry]], (also known as the [[Bergson Group]]). 

In the fall of 1943, Bloom initiated a Congressional hearing to investigate Kook and his group's rescue-oriented actions and their demand that America do something meaningful to protect the Jews of Europe. Right before [[Yom Kippur]] that year, Bloom tried to dissuade a group of about 400 Orthodox rabbis from marching to Washington and appealing to President [[Franklin D Roosevelt]] for some meaningful way to save remnants of Jews abandoned in Europe. Along with some progressive American Jewish leaders, Bloom felt the rabbis looked too un-American and that their march would be an unseemly spectacle. The "[[Rabbis' march (1943)|Rabbis' March]]" proceeded, however, with Hillel Kook. (Roosevelt avoided meeting them on the advice of a Jewish adviser.)

Bloom adopted the mainstream [[Zionist]] position that the only way to save the doomed Jews of Europe was for Britain to open the gates to [[Mandatory Palestine]]. [[Stephen Samuel Wise|Stephen Wise]] stated the same ideology at the Congressional hearing. Hillel Kook said one of the main reasons his group's rescue activity was intensely obstructed was that his desire to save Jews from the Nazis with any possible place of refuge, not just Palestine. This was considered a betrayal of Zionism.

In spite of the obstruction, Roosevelt established the [[War Refugee Board]] (WRB) in January 1944 due to the persistent pressure, publicity and lobbying by the Bergson Group and the demand from Treasury Secretary [[Henry Morgenthau Jr.|Henry Morgenthau]] and his team. Per Prof. [[David Wyman]], the WRB protected close to 200,000 people. Some consider this to be an overestimate. One of the WRB's known achievements was convincing Swedish noble [[Raoul Wallenberg]] to go to Budapest, where he saved large number of Jews from the Hungarian Fascists and the Nazis. 

Bloom urgently lobbied President [[Harry Truman]] in 1948 to immediately recognize the Jewish state of Israel, which Truman did. When the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] took control of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the 1946 election, Bloom worked closely with the new chairman, [[Charles Aubrey Eaton|Charles Eaton]].  They secured approval for the [[Truman Doctrine]] and the [[Marshall Plan]].<ref>Eleonora W. Schoenebaum, ed. ''Political Profiles: The Truman Years'' (1978) pp 40–41</ref>

==Legacy==

The Sol Bloom Playground in [[Manhattan]] is named in his honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/M244/|title=Sol Bloom Playground : NYC Parks|website=www.nycgovparks.org|access-date=September 28, 2018}}</ref>

His papers, most of them dating from 1935 to 1949, are stored at the [[New York Public Library]].

Bloom lost a bet with [[History of the Washington Senators (1901–1960)|Washington Senators]] pitcher [[Walter Johnson]] after Johnson successfully threw a silver dollar across the [[Rappahannock River]] in [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]]. Although the wager had been highly publicized, Bloom cited technicalities and refused to pay.<ref>{{cite web|last=Hornbaker |first=Mark |url=http://dcbaseballhistory.com/2012/02/big-trains-throw-across-the-rappahannock-river/ |title=Big Train's Throw Across the Rappahannock River – D.C. Baseball History |publisher=Dcbaseballhistory.com |date=1936-02-22 |access-date=2018-09-28}}</ref>

In 1937, Bloom spearheaded the writing and publication of ''The Story of the Constitution'' by the United States Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission.

His wife Evelyn (died 1941) was a composer and singer,<ref>{{cite news |title=Services for Mrs. Bloom Set Tomorrow in New York |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1941-06-25/ed-1/seq-4 |work=[[Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)|Evening Star]] |date=25 June 1941 |page=A-2}}</ref> and their daughter Vera was an author and lyricist who provided words to the tango "[[Jalousie (Gade)|Jalousie]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hischak |first=Thomas S. |url=https://archive.org/details/tinpanalleysonge00thom/page/190/mode/2up |title=The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia |date=2002 |publisher=[[Greenwood Press]] |page=191 |isbn=978-0-313-31992-1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last= |first= |date=January 1, 1959 |title=Vera Bloom Dies; Writer, Daughter of Ex-Legislator |pages=A-22 |work=[[Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)|Evening Star]] |agency=[[Associated Press]] |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1959-01-11/ed-1/seq-22/ |access-date= |issn=2331-9968}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Paymer |first1=Marvin E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MNtkSqYzpoC&pg=PA217 |title=Sentimental Journey: Intimate Portraits of America's Great Popular Songs, 1920-1945 |last2=Post |first2=Don E. |date=1999 |publisher=Noble House Publishers |isbn=978-1-881907-09-1 |pages=217 |language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of Jewish members of the United States Congress]]
* [[List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{commons category|Sol Bloom}}

* Resnick, Elliot. ''America First: The Story of Sol Bloom, the Most Powerful Jew in Congress During the Holocaust'' (New York: Brenn Books, 2023).
* Schoenebaum, Eleonora W. ed. ''Political Profiles: The Truman Years'' (1978) pp 40–41
{{CongBio|B000565}}

===Primary sources===
*Sol Bloom, ''The Autobiography of Sol Bloom,'' New York: Putnam House, 1948.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060208215845/http://chicagojewishhistory.org/pdf/CJH.3.2000.pdf Walter Roth, "Chicago Jewish History: Sol Bloom, the Music Man", 2000] (pdf file)
*[http://www.patrickkillough.com/international-un/1945_bloom.html Biographical sketch of Bloom, focusing on politics and the UN]

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  state=New York|
  district=19 |
  before=[[Walter M. Chandler]] |
  after= [[Samuel Dickstein (congressman)|Samuel Dickstein]] |
  years=March 4, 1923 – January 3, 1945
}}
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  state=New York|
  district=20 |
  before=[[Vito Marcantonio]] |
  after= [[Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.]] |
  years= January 3, 1945 – March 7, 1949
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|before=[[Sam D. McReynolds]]
|years=1939 – 1949
|after=[[Charles A. Eaton]]}}

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|title=Chairman of the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]]
|before=[[Charles A. Eaton]]
|years=1949
|after=[[John Kee]]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bloom, Sol}}
[[Category:1870 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:Jewish members of the United States House of Representatives]]
[[Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:American Zionists]]
[[Category:People from Pekin, Illinois]]
[[Category:Writers from Illinois]]
[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
[[Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)]]
[[Category:American Orthodox Jews]]
[[Category:American officials of the United Nations]]
[[Category:Sheet music publishers (people)]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives]]