Emily Warren Roebling

Emily Warren Roebling (born September 23, 1843, Cold Spring, New York, U.S.—died February 28, 1903, Trenton, New Jersey) was an American socialite, builder, and businesswoman who was largely responsible for guiding construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (1869–83) throughout the debilitating illness of its chief engineer, her husband, Washington Augustus Roebling; he had taken charge of the project after the death of the bridge’s principal designer, his father, John Augustus Roebling.

Emily Warren was born in upstate New York to a socially prominent family that traced its roots to the Mayflower. Her father, Sylvanus Warren, was a state assemblyman and town supervisor, and an older brother, Gouverneur K. Warren, was an 1850 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, who became a corps commander in the Union army during the American Civil War. Emily was educated at a convent school in Washington, D.C. Late in the war she met Washington Roebling, at that time an engineering officer on her brother’s staff, and the two were married in 1865. One child, John Augustus Roebling II (1867–1932), was born of their union.

In 1867–68 Emily accompanied her husband to Europe, where he went on his father’s orders to study the latest techniques of constructing foundations underwater by using sealed and pressurized caissons. In 1869, following the death of John Augustus from a freak accident, Washington assumed direction of the Brooklyn Bridge project, the longest-span suspension bridge in the world at that time and the first to be built with steel cables. As a result of prolonged exposure to pressurized conditions in the caissons at the bottom of the East River, Washington suffered severe attacks of decompression sickness. From 1872 he was essentially an invalid. Emily cared for him in their home in Trenton, New Jersey (where the Roebling family’s steel cable factory was located), and in a residence in Brooklyn Heights (from which Washington could observe the bridge work through a telescope). Emily served as Washington’s liaison with the engineering team, and over time she displayed such proficiency in the issues of construction, materials, and cable fabrication that some observers concluded she had assumed the duties of chief engineer. In addition, she served as spokeswoman and advocate for her husband, reassuring officials that he was capable of managing the project. Just before the grand opening of the bridge in May 1883, she rode the first carriage across from the Brooklyn side, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory. In a stirring dedication speech on opening day, the philanthropist, political reformer, and rival steelmaker Abram S. Hewitt declared that the new bridge would “ever be coupled” with the thought of Emily Warren Roebling.

After the building of the bridge, Emily passed the years 1884–88 in Troy, New York, while her son attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she then supervised the construction of a new family mansion in Trenton, where her husband returned to the family business and pursued other interests as his health permitted. Emily thereafter became active in various social and philanthropic organizations, including the Daughters of the American Revolution. In 1899 she received a certificate in business law from the Woman’s Law Class at New York University (which at that time did not admit women into its law school). She traveled and lectured widely until her death.