Archives West Finding Aid

Tape recorded interview conducted by Erika Gottfried on Feb 20, Feb 26, and Mar 12 1976.

In the tape from 2/20/76 Bloom discusses her parents' origins in Lithuania and the education and skills of her mother. She discusses her childhood and adolescence in Dublin with some mention of the Jewish community in Dublin. She tells of how she worked in London as secretary from ca 1907-1911, as well as her involvement in the British women suffrage movement, her marriage in 1912, and her emigration to Alaska. In the tape from 2/26/76, Bloom discusses early life in Alaska (1912), her acquaintance with Dr. Aileen Bradley, Lena Morrow Lewis, Viola Kelly, and Mary Lee Davis, and the birth of her first child, a daughter (birthdates of all 4 daughters given). She also talks about women's sufffrage in Alaska and the Bloom's store ("The Intellectual Delicatessen") and how women were not wanted in stores. In the tape from 3/12/76, Bloom discusses her journey to Dublin in July/August of 1914, her second child's birth in Dublin in Dec. 1914, World War I, and the Sinn Fein Rebellion. Bloom returned to Alaska in 1916 and then lived in Seattle from 1923-25. She accompanied her four daughters to school in Dublin in 1928 and returned to the U.S. in 1937. Bloom also discusses the professions of her daughters and her own education.