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J. Isabelle Sims
c. 1873-1952 Prolific Newark social worker and lifelong Newarker. Directed Fresh Air Fund Camps for 32 years and would travel to be at the Summit camp even when in a wheelchair in later life. Executive of 1923 Community Chest Campaign and director of the Newark Welfare Federation (1925) for 11 years. Replaced Beatrice Winser on…
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Delores Rich
1948-1996 President of the Aspen Riverpark Tenants Association, who did lots of organizing for tenants in the building. Tenants were forced out of the old Prudential Apartments to allow Aspen to renovate it. Delores and others organized to pressure the state to allow tenants to return and continually organized for better conditions in the building.…
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Dr. Sarah D. Smalley
1875-1952 A native of Newark who practiced in Newark from 1900-1952, for 52 years. She was active in the Newark Equal Suffrage League and a charter member of Zonta International. She was active in the Essex County Medical Society, practicing at multiple hospitals. She was educated in Newark and a graduate of the New York…
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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. Born in Russia, Dr. Finkler was the first women intern…
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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 Corporate secretary (secretary/treasurer) of Fidelity Union Bank from 1964-1975, previously assistant secretary 1961-1964 and with Fidelity from 1956. First woman officer of the bank and first woman in Newark to be elected corporate secretary. Lifelong Newark resident, daughter of Irish immigrants, attended East Side and Coleman Business College. Her family lived on East Kinney…
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Marion Roberson Kidd
1928-2012 Born in Newark. Worked 15 years with the North Jersey Community Union later named Newark Community Health Center, as a Social Outreach Manager and clerk in the Social Security program. She was the Chairperson of Essex County Welfare Rights and Manager of Newark Consumer Buyers Club, as well as director of the United Welfare…
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Dorothy Gould
1922 – 2015 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. Later, principal at Montgomery Street School. In 1980, she was made assistant executive superintendent of pupil services for the Board of Education. She retired…
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Katherine Bell Banks
1912-2008 Photo from Vailsburg yearbook 1973. Born in Tennessee, the Banks family shared a home with the WEB Dubois family in New York before moving to Newark in 1922. She graduated Barringer in 1929 and was one of the first African Americans to graduate Montclair State Teacher’s College. An early Black teacher in Newark, hired…