Worksheet (pdf): Famous Women Worksheet

By becoming president of the Trenton Trust Company in 1937, Mary Roebling became the first woman to head a major commercial bank. By 1951, she had quadrupled the banks assets to more than $71 million. Roebling was also the first female governor of the American Stock Exchange.

Jarena Lee was the first female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In her 1836 autobiography The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, Lee writes about her experiences as a preacher in several southern New Jersey communities. Lee, who was born in Cape May to free African-American parents in 1783, was a member of the American Antislavery Society.

Elizabeth Coleman White developed the nation's first cultivated blueberry. As a girl growing up on her father's cranberry farm in the Pine Barrens, she developed an interest in agriculture. Using the resources of her family farm in Whitesbog, White began working with blueberries with Frederick Coville in 1911. By 1916, they had developed a commercial blueberry from wild varieties.

For more information on New Jersey Women’s History, please visit the Women’s Project of New Jersey.