Tag: Cleveland Ohio

March 22, 1965: Former Congressman Benjamin Rosenbloom Dies in Cleveland

Former Congressman Benjamin Rosenbloom died in Cleveland on March 22, 1965, at age 84. Rosenbloom, the only Jewish congressman in West Virginia history, was born in Pennsylvania and attended West Virginia University, where he played football in 1901 and 1902.

He went on to study law at WVU and was admitted to the state bar in 1904. He was a practicing lawyer in Wheeling until his retirement in 1951.

Rosenbloom’s political career began in the legislature in 1915. The Republican served one four-year term in the state senate before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1920 and reelected two years later.

He was an early environmental advocate who tried to halt the pollution of streams. He also was an outspoken opponent of the national Prohibition on alcohol. After his second term in the House of Representatives, he ran for U.S. Senate but lost. In the 1930s, he resumed his political career—as vice mayor of Wheeling—and also served on the city council.

Benjamin Rosenbloom was a member of numerous fraternal organizations in Wheeling and belonged to the Jewish fraternal organization B’nai B’rith.

Actress & Playwright Ann Kathryn Flagg Died: October 27, 1970

Ann Kathryn Flagg died on October 27, 1970. The playwright, teacher, and actress was born in Charleston in 1924.

After growing up in the segregated part of town, she graduated from Garnet High School in 1941 and from West Virginia State College four years later. She then taught drama in a Virginia high school and toured nationally with the noted American Negro Repertory Players. Afterward, she returned to West Virginia to teach at Fairmont’s Dunbar High School.

In 1952, she was named director of the Children’s Theater at Karamu House in Cleveland. In this role, she adapted plays for children and received acclaim for starring in Sophocles’ Antigone and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.

In 1961, she moved to Chicago to work on her master’s degree. During this time, she wrote Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’. The play came in first place in the National Collegiate Playwriting Contest and was broadcast nationally on CBS television. She went on to write more plays, including Blueboy to Holiday—Over, A Significant Statistic, and Unto the Least of These.

Her sudden death from an attack of emphysema at age 46 ended a promising career.

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