Josephine Roche

Josephine Roche
Labor Advocate
1886 - 1976
INDUCTED 1986

Josephine Aspinwall Roche was a humanitarian, industrialist, activist and politician. She was a leading progressive liberal and labor advocate in Colorado during the early and mid-twentieth century.

After she earned a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, Roche was Denver’s first policewoman/social worker from 1912-1913. After her father’s 1927 death, Roche inherited his interest in the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), near Erie, Colorado. Seeking to resolve prior bitter conflicts between the United Mine Workers and the company, Roche’s mine became the first western coal company to sign a union contract and pay its miners seven dollars a day. After her unsuccessful 1934 bid for governor, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Roche Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, one of the highest cabinet positions for any woman up to that time.

“The men employed in the mines are as much an essential factor in the industry as the capital invested.” —Josephine Roche