'The Great Mother of America': the story of a Ukrainian woman who has become the pride of the United States

On June 4, 1876, a girl, Sofia, was born in Kyiv, who was no different from others. However, already at the beginning of the twentieth century the whole world was talking about her, and the Americans gratefully called her “The Great Mother of America.” And today in the center of Manhattan there is a memorial with a memorial inscription to this great Ukrainian.

Photo: Shutterstock

Her story told the publicationUkrainian interest".

Sofia's maiden name is Simon. Six years after her birth, the family of the little Ukrainian emigrated to Pennsylvania. In Rovno, where they had previously lived, her father Shmuel Simon had a jewelry workshop, but in the United States, a family with six children could barely make ends meet.

Fate was not very kind to them - soon the only breadwinner died. The children had to grow up early. Sofia worked in a store whose owner proposed marriage to her. Anselm Loeb was older than her and had a fortune. For some time, while married, Sofia worked as a primary school teacher. However, the couple did not have any special feelings - and they broke up.

The woman received a journalistic education, worked as a reporter New york evening world - a popular newspaper at the time. She studied the humanities with particular zeal and was interested in art. She wrote poems, stories and articles on social issues. Moreover, she raised painful issues of widows, orphans and children left without parental care. One of the first to conduct information campaigns in the United States. In particular, she proposed to allocate money to widows for the maintenance of children under six years of age, so that they would not have to send them to orphanages.

In the end, Loeb proved to the authorities that the state should take on this responsibility. Loeb's credo in the fight for the lives of orphans: “Not charity, but a chance for every child.” Friends said that she did not have her own children, but devoted seven years of her life to fighting for the rights of other people’s children.

Each of her publications found feedback and support from the American audience. No one was surprised when Loeb was nominated for the post of president of the Children's Welfare Committee. Her first success was that instead of $100 she managed to get an incredible amount from the state budget - $000.

At the same time, she worked on the committee as a volunteer - receiving nothing but public support. Her main income was articles that she sent to various publishers.

In 1925, the First International Congress on the Welfare of Children in Geneva adopted a resolution of Mrs. Loub, confirming the right of children to live in a family, and not just at orphanages. A vivid report of a journalist about blind children in the States was unanimously accepted by the League of Nations.

Gradually, Loeb became a prominent public figure, her opinion was considered. Sophie secured a pension in forty-two states in the United States that was paid to widows; successfully implemented several more social projects with the newly established Foundation of Widows Women and the famous Jewish activist Hannah Bachmann-Einstein.

In addition, she agreed to act as a mediator between the authorities of New York and the city's taxi drivers in the fight and for their rights. Her personal achievements also include publicity around the refusal to patron Heksher in the construction of a playground in Central Park. Sophie, raising the public, helped in the implementation of this idea, despite the authorities' argument to ban the construction of a site in the historic center of New York.

A memorial fountain was installed at this site in honor of Sophie Loeb “for her tireless work on behalf of children” after her death in 1929 (a five-sided fountain with spring water depicting characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland).

Not long ago the site was completely reconstructed. By the way, the author of the fountain was the famous sculptor Frederick George Richard Roth - the one who was the first in New York to honor the dog Balto, who saved the whole city from a diphtheria epidemic in 1925 by running for serum. This plot is described in several books and is the basis for the cartoon of the same name by Simon Wells (1995).

Sophie Irene Loub today is among the prominent American women who took part in the social and political reforms of the early twentieth century.

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