A MODERN MOTHER'S EXPERIENCE

No Date [1913]. 1st edition. Original wallet-style limp leather binding, with 'popper' closer on flap and upper cover, marbled endpapers, and gilt edges. 16mo (pocket-sized), 166 + [16] pages, plus 3 unnumbered leaves of plates with illustrations. 4 1/8 x 2 7/8 inches. Includes index and "baby record" forms at rear for recording vital birth and growth information for the parent's first four children. Early mother's pocket guidebook by Belle Israels Mosowitz (née Lindner, 1877-1933), whom the New York Times, at the time of her death, dubbed the most powerful woman in U.S. politics. Date is inferred from text reference to the author's book "The child", which first appeared in 1913. Features maternity products by Lane Bryant, Inc. "Belle Moskowitz's career is unique in American politics. After two decades as a settlement worker, social and civic reformer, and labor mediator, in the early 1920s she became one of New York governor Alfred E. Smith's closest advisers. She organized his campaigns and served as a strategist in his "kitchen cabinet." When he ran for president in 1928, she was by far the most powerful woman in the national Democratic Party-the only Jewish woman and the only woman unconnected to a prominent family to achieve such standing" (Jewish Women's Archive). "A Modern Mother's Experience" is full of practical information, gathered first-hand by Belle, then a mother of three, and presented in two sections--health and care of the expectant mother, and health and care of the newborn child. Publisher Al Malsin notes in his introduction that the book "gives not only all necessary advice and guidance, answering many intimate, perplexing questions (e.g., what kind of corset to wear), but gives hundreds of 'mother-know-hows' which will prove invaluable aids to every young wife or mother." Wearing the right corset was apparently important enough that the author included two photos as illustration. Moskowitz "was a Jewish-American progressive reformer and political advisor in the early 20th century.[B]orn.in Harlem.She was raised in an Ashkenazi Jewish family; her parents were Isidor Lindner and Esther Freyer. religious immigrants from East Prussia. Isidor was a cantor at Temple Israel, the first synagogue in Harlem. As a young girl, Belle Lindner would have been exposed to the charitable activities of the temple's female Sisterhood, a group which collected money, organized sewing for the poor, and worked with United Hebrew Charities. The Sisterhood also organized a 'Working Girl's Vacation Fund' and a 'Working Girl's Club' to improve the qualities of life for women living in the city. These activities have much in common with Lindner's later advocacy for young working-class women and recreational opportunities. In 1900, at the age of 23, Belle Lindner became a social worker at the Educational Alliance, an organization whose primary focus was cultural assimilation for Jewish immigrants. She held various appointments there, eventually becoming director of entertainments and exhibits. After leaving the Alliance, Lindner (now Belle Israels) wrote for the United Hebrew Charities and Charities, a social work journal, for which she later became an editorial assistant. She also joined the New York section of the Council of Jewish Women, another organization that helped Jewish immigrants. With her role as chair of the philanthropy committee, her focus was welfare work. She oversaw sick and poor children at a hospital on Randall's Island and visited troubled girls in reformatories. In 1907, Belle Israels joined the first board of directors for the New York branch of the Travelers' Aid Society, an organization formed with the aim of protecting solo female travelers from trafficking and other situations that threatened their safety. Her first effort at social reform was to clean up and license the city's commercial dance halls, which she saw as places that got young working girls into trouble. Working through the Council of Jewish Wome.…