Madeline McWhinney Rose at the Fed by Doing a Job Men Didn’t Want: Her early embrace of computers led to a promotion and the chance to lead a bank for women

Obituary from The WSJ by James R. Hagerty. Excerpts:

"Men were away at war in 1943 when Madeline McWhinney, a Smith College economics graduate, searched for a banking job in New York. She found one in research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

"In the late 1950s, turmoil in the government-securities market prompted Congress to insist that the Fed monitor those dealings more closely. Doing so would require expertise in government securities and computers. Ms. McWhinney got the job, making her the first female officer at the New York Fed.

In late 1973, she was recruited as president of First Women’s Bank of New York. Started by Betty Friedan and other “women’s libbers,” as the Los Angeles Times put it at the time, the bank was designed to give women better opportunities to get loans and financial jobs. But Ms. McWhinney clashed with directors over how to run the bank. She stepped down less than a year after it opened.

Ms. McWhinney later served on the American Stock Exchange’s board of governors and as a casino regulator in New Jersey."

"The work involved analyzing bond- and money-market trends."

"she began studying at New York University and eventually earned an M.B.A. degree there."