Josephine Roche

Josephine Aspinwall Roche (December 2, 1886 – July 1976) was an American humanitarian, industrialist, Progressive Era activist, and politician. As a New Deal official she helped shape the modern American welfare state. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1986.

Background

Josephine Roche was born in Neligh, Nebraska, and raised in Omaha, attending private girls' schools there before matriculating at Vassar College in 1904. There she double-majored in economics and classics, and participated in basketball and track clubs. After graduating in 1908, Roche earned a master's degree in social work in 1910 from Columbia University. Roche volunteered for social causes in both New York City and Denver, studied cost of living issues, and in 1912 returned to Denver full-time to become that city's first female police officer. However, her tenure there was short-lived, as her zealous prosecution of sumptuary laws and prostitution caused the city's more lenient law enforcement community to force her resignation.

In 1937, she resigned to return to Colorado and run Rocky Mountain Fuel following the death of its president. However, the company was too much impacted by a variety of economic forces, and declared bankruptcy in 1944.

Beginning in 1948, Roche served as one of three directors of the United Mine Workers' welfare and retirement fund.

Reformers hoped Roche would become the administrator of the new Federal Security Agency in 1939, but President Franklin Roosevelt passed her over. Her poor performance in building support for national health insurance annoyed FDR. She had wide contacts but they worked at cross purposes and there was no self-contained and unified female network.

Tributes In Lafayette, Colorado, two Boulder County housing projects have been named after Roche: Josephine Commons affordable senior housing, with October 2011 groundbreaking and first residents in summer 2012, and the Aspinwall Development, adjacent to the Josephine Roche Open Space. Both housing projects are located on land previously owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company.