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Dr. Rita Sapiro Finkler
1888-1968 Dr. Finkler established and headed the endocrinology department at Beth Israel Hospital. This was the first endocrinology department in New Jersey. She also practiced medicine in Newark for 55 years and wrote over 70 papers. She was president of the NJ Women’s Medical Association and received the Woman of the Year award from the…
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Marie Wolfs
1885-1986 Marie Wolfs was a Vice Principal of South Side High School for more than 30 years until her retirement in 1951. However, she had a very exciting life outside the school. In 1914, she and her sister Helen, who also worked at South Side, were caught in the bombing of Liege, Belgium. According to…
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Aileen Fong Shane
1926-2017 Born and raised in Newark’s Chinatown Aileen Fong Shane was an early woman engineer, graduating from Newark College of Engineering in 1946, at just age 19. In a 1947 article in the Star Ledger she was called an “outstanding female student” who graduated “near top of her class.. one of few woman mechanical engineers…
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Helen Pollard Zimmer
1910-1980 Helen Zimmer was corporate secretary (secretary/treasurer) of Fidelity Union Bank from 1964-1975 and previously assistant secretary 1961-1964 and with Fidelity from 1956. Helen was the first woman officer of the bank in Newark and the first woman in Newark to be elected corporate secretary. She said, “I’m waiting for company. There’s plenty of opportunity!”…
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Marion Roberson Kidd
1928-2012 Marion Kidd was a community activist working for welfare rights, who also worked many years with the North Jersey Community Union. In 1966, she led a group of welfare mothers to complain about welfare issues to the Essex County Welfare Board. In 1967, she was chairwoman of the UCC Welfare Committee, for Area Board…
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Dorothy Gould
1922 – 2015 Dorothy Gould was an early Black teacher, hired in 1943 for $144 a month at Cleveland Junior High as a “permanent sub” since Black teachers couldn’t be officially hired above primary level. One of her students was Mayor Gibson. Dorothy came to Montgomery Street School around 1967, and by the 1970s, she…
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Katherine Bell Banks
1912-2008 Katherine Bell Banks was born in Tennessee. The Banks family shared a home with the WEB Dubois family in New York before moving to Newark in 1922. Katherine graduated Barringer in 1929 and was one of the first African Americans to graduate Montclair State Teacher’s College. She then received a Masters from Columbvia University.…
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Tina Eugene Holtzclaw Bohannon
1905-1999 Tina Bohannon was an early Black teacher in Newark, hired before 1945, firstly as a “permanent sub” at Cleveland Junior High, because Black teachers could not be officially hired above primary level. Afterward, she taught at 7th Avenue School and Robert Treat Elementary School, and finally became Guidance Chairman at Arts High for 13…
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Theodora Sautermeister Prieth
1843-1906 Theodora Prieth owned the German Newspaper the Freie Zeitung which she managed for over 20 years after her husband died, until her son took over the paper. The Newark News said, “she had a keen insight into business” and “she developed the papers resources”. Urquhart’s History of the City of Newark said, “she directed…
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Dr. Anna M. Robinson Cross
1856-1925 Anna Cross was a physician who traveled widely in the West and was very prominent in Crawford, Nebraska where she was a government surgeon, “physician to the Indians” and relief surgeon for the railroad. The Newark Star wrote, “[she had] a professional career in the West that…for thrilling situations has never been equaled by…