Background
Bloom, Sol was born on March 9, 1870 in Pekin, Illinois, United States. Son of poor Orthodox Polish immigrants, Garrison and Sara Bloom.
Bloom, Sol was born on March 9, 1870 in Pekin, Illinois, United States. Son of poor Orthodox Polish immigrants, Garrison and Sara Bloom.
In 1875, his family moved to San Francisco, where he attended public school for exactly one day. Lacking the money to buy books, he was given texts stamped with a phrase that made it clear that the books were being loaned. Refusing to take charity, Bloom proudly left school and received lessons in Hebrew and English from his mother.
To contribute to his family’s income, Bloom sold newspapers and flowers by the age of six, and began operating a treadle in a brush factory when he was seven. He was an energetic and intelligent youth, and the owner of the factory noticed his talent with numbers and promoted him to bookkeeper at age thirteen. A few years later, Bloom began to work in San Francisco theaters performing a number of jobs, including usher, concession salesman, and occasionally performer.
Quick to seize an opportunity, Bloom, while working as hat checker, became an expert in encouraging patrons of the theater to leave him large tips. He found if he chewed garlic cloves a few minutes before the end of the show, patrons who came to retrieve their hats would hurry away from the station booth gasping for air - often leaving their change behind! While Bloom worked in the theater he developed an eye and an ear for talent, which later allowed him to become a successful impresario. In addition
to his work in the theater, Bloom developed a retail business with his brother, and became involved in party politics in San Francisco. By the time he was nineteen, entrepreneur Bloom had made enough money in various enterprises to support his family and retire.
Sol Bloom, however, was not about to retire. At twenty-one he was given a position as manager of the Midway Plaisance at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. To that world’s fair, Bloom brought exotic performers from all over the world, including an Algerian group he had discovered on his trip to the international exposition in Paris in 1889. After his success at the world’s fair he opened a music publishing business.
In 1903 Bloom moved to New York City, where he entered the real estate and construction industries. By 1920 he retired from business and began a career in politics. He was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democratic in 1923, and served there until his death.
As a member of the Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions, Bloom organized celebrations throughout the nation for the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Washington in 1932. He was a staunch supporter of New Deal legislation in the 1930s and as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee throughout the crucial years from 1939 to 1947, he guided through Congress such key measures as the draft bill and the lend-lease provision.
A supporter of the United Nations, he was chosen by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to serve as a delegate to the San Francisco Conference in 1945. There he worked for the passage of Article 80, which promised to protect the rights of Jews in Palestine. Later he supported the U.N. resolution calling for the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
Bloom served as a delegate in London to the second meeting of the United Nations. In 1947 he served on the delegation committee to the Rio de Janeiro Conference. That year the Democrats lost control of the House and the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee went to a Republican. Nevertheless, Bloom worked with the new chairman to approve funding for the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan. The following year the Democrats regained control of the House and the seventy-eight-year-old Bloom became chairman again for the last time before his death.
Member 68th to 81st Congresses (1923-1951), 20th New York District, Chairman Committee on Foreign Affairs. Member Veterans Foreign Wars.
Married Evelyn Hechheimer, 1897.