New Bedford's Roz Poll Brooker: From Polio to Political Pioneer

Attorney Rosalind “Roz” Poll Brooker, the first woman elected to the New Bedford City Council and the first to serve as council president, overcame more than gender barriers breaking into a world that, until then, had been dominated by men. Brooker also had polio and walked with the aid of crutches, but it didn’t slow her down.

Early Life in Fall River and New Bedford

Born in Fall River on September 28, 1928, to Anna and Israel Poll, the family moved to New Bedford early in her life. Roz attended Mount Pleasant Elementary School and graduated from New Bedford High School in 1946.

Breaking Barriers in Law and Politics

The New Bedford Whaling Museum’s Lighting the Way: Historic Women of the South Coast states, “Brooker was a trailblazer for women in the fields of law and politics.”

“In spite of polio and post-polio syndrome, Rosalind overcame every obstacle to become a tenacious lawyer and dedicated public servant," according to the site.

Tim Weisberg/Townsquare Media

Making History on the New Bedford City Council

After graduating from the Boston University School of Law in 1952, Attorney Brooker returned to New Bedford. She ran at-large and was elected to the New Bedford City Council in 1969, the first woman ever elected to the body. She was the first woman to be elected city council president by her colleagues.

During that time, I interviewed Councilor Brooker often.

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Appointments Beyond City Hall

Mayor John Bullard appointed Attorney Brooker to the position of New Bedford City Solicitor, also a first for a woman. Brooker was active in Republican politics and was appointed by Republican Governor Francis Sargent to serve as an Administrative Law Judge. Democrat Gov. Mike Dukakis reappointed her to that position.

Roz was married to Samuel Brooker. The couple had three children.

A Lasting Legacy in New Bedford

Brooker retired to Naples, Florida, in 1988, where she lived 28 years before her death in October 2016.

LOOK: Milestones in women's history from the year you were born

Women have left marks on everything from entertainment and music to space exploration, athletics, and technology. Each passing year and new milestone makes it clear both how recent this history-making is in relation to the rest of the country, as well as how far we still need to go. The resulting timeline shows that women are constantly making history worthy of best-selling biographies and classroom textbooks; someone just needs to write about them.

Scroll through to find out when women in the U.S. and around the world won rights, the names of women who shattered the glass ceiling, and which country's women banded together to end a civil war.

Gallery Credit: Isabel Sepulveda