Born in 1843, Emily Warren Roebling played a key role in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Educated at Georgetown Visitation Convent in Washington, D.C., she became indispensable after her husband, Chief Engineer Washington Roebling, was partially disabled by caisson disease in 1872. She managed his communications, studied his plans, copied and revised his specifications, and wrote and explained instructions to assistant engineers, while also meeting with engineers, negotiating with contractors, corresponding with reporters and trustees, and attending bridge events and lectures from the couple's home at 110 Columbia Terrace. Emily helped sustain the project through its final years, led trustees across the newly planked promenade in 1881, defended Washington's position as Chief Engineer in 1882, and shortly before the opening drove a carriage across the bridge at a trot with a rooster as a symbol of victory. When the bridge opened in May 1883, she rode in the first carriage to cross and later hosted a reception attended by President Chester A. Arthur. Praised for her contributions, she later traveled alone to Europe in 1896, where she was presented to Queen Victoria and attended the coronation of Czar Nicholas II, and in 1899 completed the Women's Law Course at NYC, winning a $50 prize for her essay criticizing legal limits on women's financial independence. After her death in 1903, Washington Roebling praised her remarkable talent and thorough knowledge of the work and plans, and Abram Hewitt called the Brooklyn Bridge an everlasting monument to her efforts and self-sacrifice.
