Early Women in Banking

Anna Martin and two sons overlooking a document while seated at a table

Archives of The Commercial Bank of Mason, TX

“Woman bank presidents in the United States are very rare indeed. It is quite possible to go through a whole lifetime without seeing one." -Mary Church Terrell, 1930

From 1903 until her death in 1934, Maggie L. Walker used her bank, the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, to provide economic empowerment to women, and help strengthen Richmond's emerging black middle class. Walker's role as a woman who both founded a bank and served as its president was very rare for the time, and wholly unique within the black community. However, it was not entirely unprecedented. The women who preceded Walker as bank founders and presidents, all white and well-to-do, did not face the same challenges Walker did - as a black woman starting a bank from scratch in the South during the height of the Jim Crow era - nor did they always distinguish themselves like Walker with long and prosperous banking careers. Still, their lesser-known stories help us better understand how successful women were in challenging the male-dominated field of banking between the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Representing a wide variety of ages, regions, and even work experience, here are some brief biographies of just a few of those interesting women:


Louise M. Weiser (1837–1898), President of the Winnesheik County Bank in Decorah, Iowa (ca. 1875–1892). Born in Vermont, Louise Amy married Horace Weiser around 1860 and settled in Decorah, Iowa where she lived for the remainder of her life. Her husband Horace, who had come from a family of bankers in Pennsylvania, had started the Winnesheik County Bank in Decorah in 1855 and served as its first president until his death in 1875. Weiser assumed the presidency of the bank soon after the death of her husband, and served in that capacity until their son, C.S. Weiser, became the bank’s third president in 1892. To date, Weiser is the earliest known woman bank president in the U.S. [1]

Deborah Powers (1790–1891), Head of the bank D. Powers & Sons in Troy, NY (1877–1891). The only woman bank president to have been born in the 18^th century, Deborah Powers is also the oldest (87), and the first one known to have started a bank. Born Deborah Ball in Hebron, New Hampshire, she married William Powers around 1810 and moved to Lansingburgh, New York. Upon William’s accidental death in 1829, Powers took over his profitable oil cloth manufacturing business and turned it into one of the largest of its kind in the world. She continued to run it even after establishing the bank, D. Powers & Sons, in 1877 which her sons, Albert and Nathaniel, helped run. Described in her day as the “oldest woman banker in the country,” Powers ran the bank until her death, leaving behind an estate valued at $2,000,000, and a successful business career spanning over half a century. [2]

Leila Comstock (1873–1895), President of the Comstock Banking Company in Green City, Missouri (1892–ca. 1895). Having entered the banking business at 16, and becoming a bank president at just 18, Leila Comstock is the youngest known woman to serve as a bank president. Comstock attended Ohio’s Oberlin Business College from 1888-1889 before returning home to Missouri and starting work as the assistant cashier and bookkeeper at the Comstock Banking Company in Green City. In 1892, a second Comstock Banking Company was opened at Green Castle, Missouri, at which point Comstock was appointed president of the old bank and cashier at the new one. She married Edward C. Swann in 1894, though details concerning both the marriage and her early death at just 22 the following year are unknown. [3]

Evelyn Tome [later Evelyn Frances] (1855–1927), President of the Cecil County Bank in Port Deposit, Maryland (1898–?) and the Elkton National Bank in Elkton, Maryland (1898–1906). Evelyn Tome was 42 years old when she inherited the presidency of the Cecil County Bank from her deceased husband, Jacob Tome, in 1898. Later that year, she was also elected president of the Elkton National Bank, making her the first known woman to have been president of more than one bank at the same time. Along with her position at the banks, Tome became the executrix of her deceased husband’s vast estate which stipulated that she use over $4,000,000 to establish the Jacob Tome Institute in order to provide free education to its students. Three years after the school opened in 1900, Tome married one of its instructors, Joseph Irwin France, and soon began to withdraw from the world of business. It isn’t yet known when Tome’s presidency of the Cecil County Bank ended, but upon her husband’s election to the Maryland State Senate in 1906, the couple soon moved to Baltimore, and she retired from the Elkton National Bank. [4]

Mary E. Miller (1843–1921), President of the Lafayette Bank and Trust Company in Lafayette, Colorado (1900–1913), and the Louisville Bank in Louisville, Colorado (1914–1915). Mary E. Miller and her husband, Lafayette, moved to Boulder, Colorado from Iowa in 1863 and settled on a ranch. After Lafayette’s death in 1878, coal was discovered on their property. With the money she earned from the companies who arrived to mine it, Miller established the nearby town of Lafayette, which she named after her late husband. There, she established a school, funded the construction of churches, ran for state office (as the Prohibition candidate), and started a bank, the Lafayette Bank and Trust Company, which opened in 1900. Miller served as the bank’s president-alongside several of her children who worked in various leadership capacities-until 1913, when the controlling interest in the bank was purchased by a Robert Sohlbert of Guthrie, Oklahoma. The following year, the bank merged to become the Louisville Bank in Louisville, Colorado. Although Miller became president of the new bank, it failed just one year later. [5]

Anna Martin (1843–1925), Founder and President of the Commercial Bank of Mason in Mason, Texas (1901–1925). Born Anna Mebus in Germany, she is the first woman bank president known to be from outside the United States. Martin arrived in Texas with her mother around the age of 15, and soon married her cousin, Charles Martin. She found work at her uncle's dry goods store, but as close family members began to pass away (including Charles in 1879), she expanded her business skills by opening a successful store of her own, A. Martin & Sons, aided by her two boys, Charles and Max. Martin switched gears and opened the Commercial Bank of Mason in 1901 at 58 years old, and soon bought out her only competitor. Martin ran the bank until her death, and it remained in the Martin family until the late 1950s. [6]