Born on July 4, 1876, in Rovno, Russia, Sophie Simon came with her parents to the United States when she was six. She grew up and attended school in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She taught school there until her marriage in March 1896 to Anselm Loeb. The marriage was not successful, and in 1910 she obtained a divorce and moved to New York City. She soon secured a position with the New York Evening World, to which she had contributed occasional articles from McKeesport. In 1913 she published a book of Epigrams of Eve.
In the course of her reportorial work Loeb became particularly interested in the plight of widowed mothers, and she used the columns of her newspaper to publicize both the problem and the work of such leaders as Hannah B. Einstein toward a solution. In 1913 she and Einstein were appointed to the newly created State Commission on Relief for Widowed Mothers. She made a tour of several European nations in 1913╨1914 to study welfare practices for the commission. Her work with the commission and on the Evening World contributed immeasurably to the passage by the legislature in 1915 of a bill authorizing the creation of child welfare boards in every county and the use of public money for the support of widowed mothers╤the ╥mother╒s pension.╙
In that year Loeb was appointed to New York City╒s Child Welfare Board, of which she became president. During the eight years she held that post she made her board a model for others. Administrative expenses were kept to a bare minimum, while the use of trained social workers as case investigators assured maximum equity in the distribution of funds. Her effectiveness was also indicated by the increase in the board╒s appropriation from $100,000 in its first year to more than $4.5 million at the end of her term. During that time she also served on a commission appointed by Governor Alfred E. Smith in 1920 to codify the state╒s laws in the child welfare field. In the same year she published Everyman╒s Child. In 1924 she helped found and became first president of the Child Welfare Committee of America. Her belief in the importance of keeping families together and children out of orphanages was endorsed by the International Congress on Child Welfare in Geneva in 1926, which she attended, and in 1927 she submitted a report on blind children in America to the League of Nations.
Other public topics that occupied Loeb at various times included corruption in the New York Public Service Commission, an investigation of which she instigated in 1916; legislation for cheap school lunches and milk; reforms in taxi fares and driver bonding; health and safety regulations for motion picture theaters; tenement regulation, play streets, and public baths; and free maternity care for the indigent. She mediated a New York City taxi strike in 1917 in seven hours. Her 1925 tour of Palestine converted her to Zionism and resulted in Palestine Awake: The Rebirth of a Nation, 1926. Sophie Loeb died in New York City on January 18, 1929.
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