Mary Roebling

Mary Gindhart Herbert Roebling (1905–1994) was an American banker. She was the first woman to serve as president of a major US bank.^[1]

Biography

Mary Gindhart was born in West Collingswood, New Jersey on July 29, 1905.^[2] She attended public schools in Moorestown and Haddonfield. She married musician Arthur Herbert in her teens and had a daughter. He died three years later. She then worked in Philadelphia at an investment house while taking night classes in business administration and merchandising at the University of Pennsylvania.^[1]

Her second husband, Siegfried Roebling, died in 1936 and left her Trenton Trust stock. She took his seat on a Trenton Trust Company board. She was elected president of the board on January 21, 1937 and became the first woman to serve as president of a major American bank. She served as either president or chair of the board until 1972 when the bank merged with National State.^[1] She then chaired the combined banks until 1984.^[3] From 1958 to 1962, she was governor of the American Stock Exchange. She was their first woman governor.^[1]

Through several administrations, Roebling served as a civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army. She was made president of the new Army War College Foundation in 1978. That year she also founded Women's Bank N.A. in Denver and chaired its board until 1983.^[1]

She died on October 25, 1994 of renal failure at her home in Trenton.^[1]

References