Ella Reeve Bloor

By 1933, over 150,000 farms were being lost to foreclosure every year, a disproportionate amount of which were in Iowa. A movement called the Farmers Holiday Association began in Iowa with a peaceful strike by farmers who withheld their products from market. But the association became more militant, and it soon set up roadblocks to keep trucks from delivering any produce or dairy products to the market. They also banded together at foreclosure auctions and bullied buyers away from the sales so they could reclaim the farms and return them to the original owners. The auctions became known as "penny sales" since many of the properties went for pennies on the dollar.

Ella Reeve Bloor, also known as "Mother Bloor," was a well-known Communist Party leader who spent most of her life organizing labor. She was very active during the...