Charlotte Battles: The Banker Who Defied Roosevelt
Near Erie, Pennsylvania
In March of nineteen thirty-three, President Franklin Roosevelt declared a national Bank Holiday and ordered every financial institution in the country to close. Nearly all of them obeyed. Charlotte Battles did not.
Born in Girard in eighteen sixty-four, Battles had inherited the presidency of R.S. Battles Bank after her father's death in nineteen oh four, becoming an early woman bank president at a time when such a thing was almost unimaginable.
When the crisis hit, she refused to shutter the institution, arguing her bank was sound and her community needed it open. The stand drew national attention. Beyond the bank, she gave generously to causes across Erie County.
The bank operated from this building until it closed in nineteen forty-six.
