Ecksteinová was born into a working-class family in the Smíchov district of Prague in 1871.

[1] She joined the Czechoslavonic Social Democratic Workers' Party (ČSDSD) at the turn of the century, rising to become its treasurer.

[1] She helped found the Jubilee Study Fund that provided bursaries to party members, chaired the Greater Prague Trust Committee and was appointed to the Permanent Consumer Survey at the Ministry of Supply.

Following the independence of Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I, Ecksteinová was a member of the Revolutionary National Assembly [cs] from 1918 to 1920.

[1] When the party split in the early 1920s, she took over its daily newspaper, Právo lidu [cs].