Sophie Irene Loeb, Noted Writer and Social Welfare Worker, Dies

The funeral of the late Sophie Irene Loeb, noted author and leader in child welfare work who died on Friday, took place Sunday afternoon from the Free Synagogue House, New York Dr. Stephen S. Wise officiated at the services. Interment was in Westchester Hills Cemetery of the Free Synagogue. Mount Hope, New York.

Forty states in the Union have followed her leadership in the enactment of child welfare legislation for which she worked in New York State and elsewhere for many years. In 1927 she was invited to Geneva to sit with the social service section of the League of Nations to frame an international code for the care of dependent and afflicted children.

Death came to Miss Loeb in Memorial Hospital, following an illness of two months. She was 53 years old.

Miss Loeb had been a factor in the social reform program of New York State since she first entered the political field in 1913 as champion of widowed mothers and fatherless children. Since then she espoused many other reform projects. She carried her project for mother’s pensions from New York State to the nation as a whole and to the League of Nations. In 1910 she became a member of the staff of “The Evening World” and there began the series of articles describing the problems of the poor on the lower East Side which gave the impetus to many reform measures in Albany. For years she gave publicity to the causes for which she was campaigning and they were almost invariably successful. It was said of her that she was directly responsible for more reform measures than any other one woman in the country.

Miss Loeb advocated that the state abolish the system of orphan asylums for normal children, that pensions be paid to widowed mothers which would enable them to rear their children at home. The first commission for the study of child welfare was appointed in 1913 with Miss Loeb and Mrs. William Einstein as the only women members. Miss Loeb made a study of conditions in European countries in connection with the commission’s work. New York State created the Boards of Child Welfare with Miss Loeb appointed first member of the New York County Board. She held the post of president of the board until 1924.

During the war she was vice-chairman of the Mayor’s Committee of Women for National Defense. She settled a taxi driver’s strike in seven hours in 1917.

As president of the Child Welfare Committee of America, Miss Loeb launched her campaign to abolish orphan asylums throughout the country. In 1926 a law similar to that of New York State was passed by Congress for the District of Columbia, establishing widow’s pensions.

Miss Loeb was known in Europe as well as this country for her indefatigable endeavors in behalf of dependent widows and children and for the betterment of working conditions. She was born in Russia and brought to the United States at the age of 6. She turned early to writing and to the work of uplifting humanity. She never received pay for her welfare work and she declined to run for public office, although often urged to do so. She was the daughter of Samuel and Mary Carey Simon. On March 10, 1896, she was married to Anselm Loeb of Pittsburgh, from whom she was later divorced.

Several years ago Miss Loeb made a trip to Palestine. Among her works are “The New Jerusalem,” Palestine Awake,” “Epigrams of Eve,” “Everyman’s Child,” “Century Fables of Everyday Folks” and many sociological works and surveys. She was a member of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the League of American Pen Women, the Women’s City Club, the Civic and the Twilight Club.