Bell suffered through the hardships of the Great Depression and more. As Waters explains, the Bolotsky family name was "only a few generations old, constructed to avoid military service." Bell's mother was forced to work full time as a pattern maker following the death of her husband when her son was eight months old. Bell lived with his mother and her extended family until 1927, and he was often placed in a Hebrew day orphanage, depending on his mother's schedule. By the time Bell reached the age of eleven, Samuel Bolotsky, his uncle and guardian, changed the family name because his upward social climb as a dentist demanded a more fitting (or, a less ethnic) name. Bell grew up amidst these changes and experienced the full meaning, according to Waters, of the immigrant Jewish experience: "Yiddish as the first language, Hebrew school, ethnic street gangs, petty crime, racketeering and the public poverty of waterfront shacks."
At a young age Bell joined the Young People's Socialist League at thirteen after reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), and participated in student strikes every 7 April to protest the anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war.
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