Mary Margaret O'Reilly | |
|---|---|
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| 1st Assistant Director of the United States Bureau of the Mint | |
| In office July 1, 1924 – October 29, 1938 | |
| President | |
| Mint Director |
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| Succeeded by | F. Leland Howard |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 14, 1865 Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | December 6, 1949 (aged 84) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Mary Margaret O'Reilly (October 14, 1865 – December 6, 1949) was an American civil servant who served as the assistant director of the United States Bureau of the Mint from 1924 until 1938. One of the United States government's highest-ranking female employees of her time, she worked at the Mint for 34 years, during which she often served as acting director during the Mint Director's absence.
O'Reilly was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to an Irish immigrant family. Growing up in that state, she left school around the age of 14 to help support both her widowed mother and her siblings. Likely starting work in the local textile mills, she gained clerical training at night school before working as a clerk in Worcester for eighteen years. In 1904, O'Reilly gained a position at the Mint Bureau, resulting in a move to Washington, D.C. She rose rapidly in the bureau's hierarchy – an unusual feat for a woman at that time – and was frequently called upon to testify before the United States Congress. As many of the Mint's directors were political appointees who had little knowledge or interest in the bureau's operations, the task of running the institution often fell to her. In 1924 she was officially appointed assistant director.
In 1933, the Mint gained its first female Director, Nellie Tayloe Ross, and despite initial mistrust between her and O'Reilly, they came to forge a strong bond. Although scheduled for mandatory retirement in 1935, O'Reilly was considered to be so indispensable to the bureau's operations that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt postponed this until 1938. During her later years, O'Reilly remained in Washington D.C.; she no longer involved herself in Mint affairs, instead devoting much of her attention to Catholic charitable work.