TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY AMERICAN BANKER MARY ROEBLING, FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT OF A U.S. BANK.

Trenton, NJ: September 9, 1976.. 1976.. Fine. - 84 words typed on a sheet of cream-colored 11 inch high by 8-1/2 inch wide National State Bank letterhead with 'Mary G. Roebling / Chairman of the Board" printed at the top below a vignette of a sailing ship. Signed "Mary Roebling". There is a small pencil notation at top right. Folded twice for mailing. Near fine. <p>Roebling writes to Congressman Seymour Halpern, regretting that she cannot attend the signing of the new Declaration of Independence for children. "I am sure the affair will be most successful. Certainly it is in behalf of a most worthwhile effort. Child abuse and child neglect is appalling and daily the newspapers tell of more and more cases."<p>Mary Roebling [1905-1994] was an American banker. After the death of her second husband Siegfried Roebling in 1936, she took his seat on the Trenton Trust Company board. She was elected president of the board in January 1937, the first woman to serve as president of a major U.S. bank. When the bank merged with National State Bank in 1972, she chaired the combined banks until 1984. From 1958 to 1962 she was governor of the American Stock Exchange, their first woman governor.<p>The Queens, New York Republican Congressman Seymour Halpern (1913-1997) started his political career as a campaign aide to New York's powerful mayor Fiorella La Guardia and first served in New York's State Senate for 14 years before seeking a seat in the U.S. Congress. In Albany Halpern sponsored 279 bills that became law, including measures on schools, housing, civil rights, nutrition and mental health. A Liberal, he was something of an anomaly as the lone Republican representative from New York City, and generally garnered support from Labor Unions and endorsement from the Liberal Party. Yet he never even considered switching parties as he considered membership in the Republican Party a family tradition and commitment. While he found ample time for his private pursuits, including painting and collecting autographs, he took his legislative duties very seriously. Of these, he was proudest of his co- sponsorship of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and of the original 1965 Medicare legislation.