Ida Crouch-Hazlett

Ida Crouch-Hazlett in 1904, about the time she moved to Lewistown to take over editorship of Montana News. Ida Crouch-Hazlett (born Ida Estelle Crouch, – 1941) was an American political activist prominent in the suffrage and socialist movements. Crouch-Hazlett is best remembered as a prominent orator and organizer for the Socialist Party of America during the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1902 Crouch-Hazlett became the first female candidate for U.S. Congress from Colorado when she ran for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Biography Early years

Ida Estelle Crouch was born c. 1870 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of two college-educated schoolteachers. Crouch grew up in Monmouth, Illinois, where she attended elementary school, before enrolling in the Monticello Seminary of Godfrey, Illinois. and the Chicago School of Social Sciences following completion of her training as a teacher at Illinois Normal School.

After graduation, Crouch-Hazlett ran for local school board on the ticket of the Prohibition Party. Following that unsuccessful attempt, she held a series of positions as a teacher of elocution in Illinois, Colorado, and Wyoming, an occupation that helped her to craft her skills as an orator. She joined the fledgling Socialist Party of America (SPA) around the time of its formation in 1901 and thereafter became one of its most prominent female voices. and a Socialist Party of Montana delegate to the 1908 Convention.

Following her time as a Socialist Party traveling lecturer, Crouch-Hazlett settled down as an organizer for the Socialist Party of Montana, Hazlett was named editor of the Socialist Party of Montana's newspaper, Montana News, in December 1905.

One historian has called Crouch-Hazlett "a most different administrator" of the party newspaper, noting that she preferred to play the role of "roving reporter" and leaving the technical and administrative details of newspaper production to her close political associate, State Secretary James D. Graham. Duncan proclaimed the state party's books to be in "wretched condition" and led Local Butte in organizing a call for the resignation of Graham and Hazlett.

in 1910, with Montana News broken by the factional warfare and party membership down by 45 percent,

Crouch-Hazlett ended her career as an organizer on behalf of the Socialist Party in 1921.

Death and legacy

In 1925 Crouch-Hazlett enrolled at New York University in an effort to earn a Doctorate degree. She died in May 1941. Her papers reside among the Social Democratic Party Papers of the Milwaukee County Historical Society in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Footnotes

Works

"Women in the Socialist Movement," Montana News [Lewiston], June 1, 1904, pg. 1. "Mrs. Hazlett Brutally Treated at Spokane," The Socialist [Seattle], whole no. 344 (September 21, 1907), pg. 1. "The Socialist Movement and Woman Suffrage," Socialist Woman, vol. 2 (June 1908), pg. 5. "Finale!" (poem), The New Review, vol. 1, no. 9 (March 1, 1913), pg. 276.