Rebecca Lukens, owner and manager of a Pennsylvania (USA) steel mill, is widely considered the first American female CEO of an industrial company.

  • Born (USA)

  • Took over opereration of a single steel mill

  • Survived the financial panic that closed many iron works

  • Inducted into the Global Business Hall of Fame

Born in 1794 to a Quaker family, she shadowed her father as he ran an iron mill in Coatesville and attended school through her teenage years. With an eye for innovation and future needs, Rebecca and her husband, Charles Lukens, recognized the growing demand for iron boilerplates in steamships. After the deaths of her father and her husband, Rebecca took up the mantle of running the Brandywine Iron Mill, and went on to great success despite hurdles along the way.

Intelligent, well-educated, and independent, Rebecca Lukens was born Rebecca Webb Pennock to a well-to-do family. Her father ran a slitting mill, a specialized iron forge that rolls iron plates into rods for blacksmiths. When not in school, Rebecca accompanied her father to the mill and on business trips, despite her mother’s disapproval. Because Quakers believe in equality in education, Rebecca completed schooling through her teenage years, eventually attending boarding school in Delaware, USA. Not long after finishing school, Rebecca met Dr. Charles Lukens while on a trip to Philadelphia. Charles had a successful medical practice in nearby Montgomery County, but as they made plans to wed, Rebecca convinced him to pursue the iron business alongside her father. At the time of their wedding in 1813, Rebecca’s father was running two ironworks—Rokeby and the Brandwine Ironworks and Nail Factory. In 1817, Rebecca and Charles took over the operations of Brandywine, paid for its maintenance on their own and, recognizing a future need, took on debt to refit Brandywine to begin manufacturing boilerplates for steamships, becoming the first business in the United States to make them.

But in the 1820s, Rebecca Luken suffered devastating tragedies, including a major flood, the death of two children, the death of her father, and the death of her husband. On top of the tragedies and despite the years of hard work Rebecca and Charles had put into running Brandywine, her father did not leave the company to Rebecca, but she was still responsible for running the company. Managing suppliers, employees, and customers, Rebecca ran the ironworks with intelligence and discipline. Thanks to Charles’s foresight, the demand for boilerplates was high in the 1830s, and Brandywine Ironworks cornered the market. Rebecca was able to pay off debts and rebuild the facility after a second devastating flood in 1834. Brandywine flourished despite financial panic in 1837 that closed several ironworks facilities, still more floods, a suit over water rights, and considerable strain among her extended family over claims to the business. But Rebecca’s strength of will drove her forward, and she ran a successful business until her declining health forced her to step down in 1847 after 22 years.

After her death, Brandywine Ironworks was renamed Lukens Ironworks and, later, Lukens Steel in her honor. In 1994, Fortune magazine recognized her as America’s first female industrialist leader. That same year, she was inducted into the Global Business Hall of Fame.


I must have possessed some energy of character, for now I look back and wonder at my daring. I had such strong, such powerful incentives for exertion that I felt I must succeed.
— Rebecca Lukens

A Global Force for Good

At a time when women simply weren’t considered capable of running a business, Rebecca Lukens defied expectations, took over leadership of a steel company, and grew a profitable enterprise, thereby acting as a model of female empowerment for the women and girls around her.