Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Maude Elizabeth McFie Bloom, 1880-1973
By Kori Thompson, Professor of History, New Mexico Junior College, Hobbs, NM
Historian and Spanish translator; member of the New Mexico Suffrage League; Officer, Red Cross and Red Cross Committee of Ladies
Maude Elizabeth McFie was born in 1880 in Coulterville, Illinois to Judge John Robert McFie and Mary Barr Steel McFie. In 1903, she completed college at New Mexico A&M with a thesis called "A History of Mesilla Valley" that was later published as a book. She spent a year in Europe studying languages and music. She married Rev. Lansing Bartlett Bloom on July 7, 1907, with whom she had two sons and two daughters: Joyce Bloom (1910-1911), Carol Lansing Bloom (1916-2015), and Brewster Lansing Bloom (1918-1922); John Porter Bloom (1924- ). Lansing Bloom died in 1946 and she died February 1973 in Virginia.
As a member of the Equal Suffrage League, Maude was invited to the New Mexico Governor's executive mansion in May 1918 where she conducted a silent debate on "your best reason for and your best reason against suffrage" by having all members submit a written reply on the subject in order to promote women suffrage and counteract arguments against. In June 1918, she gave a talk at a League meeting on "The Condition of Russian and German Women."
Mrs. Bloom was also active in organizations beyond the suffrage movement. In 1915 she offered a course of Bible study, "Five Literary Periods of the Old Testament," through the YWCA. In 1919, she was chosen as the founding president of the Pan-Hellenic League in Santa Fe. She was also a member of the New Mexico Archaeological Society.
Maud McFie Bloom, as she was often referred to in local newspapers, was lauded as a playwright of the Southwest and her play, "Tonita of the Holy Faith" was described as "a drama of great merit," in a November 1920 account.
Sources:
"Suffragettes at Executive Mansion." Albuquerque Morning Journal. May 5, 1918.
Articles from New Mexico newspapers, accessed through a search on newspapers.com.
"Santa Fe Woman Writes a Drama of Great Merit," Albuquerque Journal, 12 November 1920, p. 5.
Untitled article, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 5 January 1905, p. 4.