From the Federal Reserve Bank Of New York's Liberty Street Economics blog:
Mary Roebling (1904-94) was the first woman to serve as president of a
major U.S. bank. (She was also the first woman governor of the American
Stock Exchange, among numerous other honors.) According to a New York Times obituary, she came into her position through a combination of happenstance and preparation:
Mrs. Roebling’s own economic power came initially through inheritance,
but she increased it vastly once it fell into her hands. She was
bequeathed a large block of Trenton Trust stock by her millionaire
second husband, Siegfried Roebling, whose family had long been prominent
in engineering and cable manufacturing. He was a great-grandson of John
A. Roebling, who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, and a grandson of Col.
Washington A. Roebling, who completed its construction.
Siegfried Roebling died in 1936, of a heart attack. Mrs. Roebling’s
father and father-in-law then urged her to try her hand at running the
bank. She had preparation for the job: she had worked for a Philadelphia
investment house while taking business courses at night and, the two
men told her, she had another important qualification, common sense.
The rest was banking history. She took her husband’s seat on the bank’s board and, on Jan. 21, 1937, was elected president.
Here’s the fun part: she had 200 commemorative mechanical banks made in her image! (See alternate views and moving images of other banks.)
That’s right—and the last time we looked, one was selling on eBay for
over $1,300 and another on an auction site for over $1,800. Why were
these banks made?
According to a 1967 issue of Hobbies Magazine,
...she sets aside certain time to the avocation of collecting mechanical
banks and has a deep interest in her collection. Sometime prior to 1963,
the 75th anniversary of her bank the Trenton Trust, Mrs. Roebling came
up with the idea of creating a mechanical bank to commemorate the
occasion. She wanted the bank to have the characteristics of the old
cast iron type and be made in the same fashion and material. This
required a bit of ingenuity on her part, and to begin with she acquired
the services of the well known sculptor, Anthony Greenwood of
Philadelphia, Pa. He worked for some six months to develop the original
idea and two working models were made. These at a later date completely
and mysteriously disappeared.
It was decided by Mrs. Roebling to make a limited edition of
200 of the banks, each to be numbered. The Grey Iron Casting Company of
Mt. Joy, Pa., made the bank from designs by J.E. Brubaker. The Mary
Roebling-Trenton Trust mechanical bank was designed to symbolize the
free enterprise system upon which our country’s economy thrives—to
commemorate 25 years during which Mrs. Roebling has served as President
and Chairman of the Board of Trenton Trust—to show the bank’s location,
significant in historic times, as well as today, where it is the highest
building in Trenton.
According to the descriptive entry for the bank on the artsconnected.org website, here is how this mechanical bank works:
bank building with female figure seated in front in blue dress; lever on
back activates woman's arm which “shovels” coins into the side of the
building and then a sign saying “Trenton Trust” pops out of the top of
the building like toast....
...
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