Emily Warren Roebling, c. 1875
Courtesy, Special Collections/University Archives,
Rutgers University Libraries.

Emily Roebling was the wife of Col. Washington A. Roebling, an engineer and vice-president of the Roebling Company of Trenton, makers of wire rope. In 1873, while Washington Roebling was building the Brooklyn Bridge, he became ill and was incapacitated. Emily Roebling took over the supervision of the work and saw to completion the building of the bridge, the first span over the East River from New York City to Brooklyn.