Organizations Files,, 1941-1994

Summary: Primarily documents organizations in which Mary G. Roebling played a significant role, through serving on the board of directors, as a donor, advisor, or active participant, although occasional material may constitute solicitation without a documented response. Primarily consists of documents generated by organizations and maintained for reference purposes, as well as correspondence. Document types include correspondence, reports, financial documents, memoranda, minutes, brochures, pamphlets, press releases, telegrams, newspaper and magazine clippings, invitations, notes, and a book.

The types of organizations vary and include corporations, private companies, non-profit and educational organizations, as well as government offices and agencies. These organizations range from political, social, and business to educational, historical, religious, and philanthropic. Some individuals are included primarily as representatives of their organization.

Series consists of two sub-series: Organizations Files 1941-1994; and Organizations Files 1949-1992.

Organizations Files 1941-1994 (6.5 cubic feet) documents Mary Roebling's involvement with the American Institute for Public Service, Atlantic Congress for NATO, Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the Girl Scouts, the Governor's Economic Recovery Commission, the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Invest-in-America National Council, the National Association of Bank Women, the National Business Council for Consumer Affairs, New Jersey Tercentenary Commission, the New York World's Fair, United Jewish Appeal, Westminster Choir College, the Woods Schools, and many other organizations.

Of particular interest is her appointment in 1959 as one of one hundred delegates to the Congress of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in London, the purpose of which was to enlarge the activities and increase understanding of the organization. Also of interest is Mary Roebling's service as a member of the Citizens' Advisory Council on the Status of Women, to which she was appointed by President Kennedy in 1963; to the New Jersey Tercentenary Commission, where she served as co-chair for Mercer County; and on the Advisory Ways and Means Committee for the New Jersey pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1964.

This sub-series also documents Roebling's service on the United States Council, International Chamber of Commerce, Inc., from 1974 to 1981; on the President's Task Force on International Private Enterprise, formed in 1983 by President Reagan, which recommended ways to strengthen private enterprise in the developing world; and as a member of the National Business Council for Consumer Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce Sub-Council on Advertising and Promotion from 1971 to 1973. In addition, it documents her service on the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness, to which she was appointed by Governor Thomas Kean in 1983; and the Governor's Economic Recovery Commission (1975), which addressed the costs of doing business in New Jersey.

Finally, this series documents Roebling's philanthropic interests, particularly her service on the Board of Trustees of the Woods Schools and Residential Treatment Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a school of special education, from the 1950s until the 1990s.

Organizations 1949-1992 documents many of same organizations as Organizations 1941-1994, although the bulk dates from a slightly later period. For instance, it includes documentation of the Invest-in-America Foundation, the United States Council for International Business (formerly the United States Council of the International Chamber of Commerce), the President's Task Force on International Private Enterprise, the Governor's Economic Recovery Commission, and the Woods Schools.

Of particular interest is documentation of Mary Roebling's support of philanthropic organizations such as the National Conference of Christians and Jews, of which she was honorary chairman of the Mercer County Chapter and one of the sponsors of the Annual Brotherhood Awards dinner; the George C. Marshall Research Foundation in Lexington, Virginia, which funded scholarly and educational activities to honor Marshall's memory; the Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first medical school for women in the United States, of which Roebling sat on the Board until 1990; and many local organizations including St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, a private girls' school where Roebling sat on the Board of Trustees in the 1940s and 1950s; the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra, of which Roebling was Chairman of the Board of Governors; and the New Jersey State Museum. Also of interest are Roebling's service on the Board of the National Council of Churches, where she was placed on the Business and Finance Committee; and her election to the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America in 1973.

This sub-series also documents Roebling's attempts, as a prominent member of the Trenton Chamber of Commerce, to attract the United States Steel Corporation to the Trenton area, and to gain the company's business for the Trenton Trust bank, when its Fairless plant was built in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, in 1951.

1941-1994