Rita Sapiro Finkler (1888-1968)
Courtesy, F. G. Smith Library, Special Collections, College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

This photo of Dr. Rita S. Finkler was taken in her laboratory at Beth Israel Hospital, Newark, c. 1932. Finkler was the first woman on the senior medical staff at Beth Israel, where she founded the department of endocrinology in 1939 and directed it until 1951. It was there she performed the first pregnancy tests in New Jersey. Finkler immigrated from Ukraine as a young woman, graduated from the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia in 1915, and lived most of her professional life in Newark.