Emily Warren Roebling: The first woman field engineer

When Washington Roebling, the chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, fell ill in 1872, his wife Emily Warren Roebling took over his duties. For 11 years she relayed messages, oversaw the day-to-day activities, and gained extensive knowledge of engineering. When the bridge opened #OnThisDay in 1883, Emily Roebling rode across it with President Chester Arthur. It was said that the bridge was “an everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.”