Mary Foley was a trailblazing 1920s NYC female police officer

In ‘The Girls Who Fought Crime: The Untold True Story of the Country’s First Female Investigator and Her Crime Fighting Squad’ (Sourcebooks), retired US Army Major General Mari K. Eder tells the story of Mary Foley, a pioneering police officer in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in 1886, Mary, or “Mae,” Foley was raised by Irish and French immigrant parents in the Gas House District of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and was always interested in a police career, despite marrying young and having children.

But she was a multi-tasker par excellence.

“Mae balanced all aspects of her life; policing, wife and mother, the love of travel — she could do it all,” Eder tells the Post.

Foley began her NYPD training in 1923 and, after completion, joined the “Masher Squad,” a unit dedicated to protecting women from the unwanted attention of predatory men. 

“Mae realized that so much of policing is about mediating conflict and resolving issues in relationships. It’s about talking and listening,” says Eder.

“Even today, studies show that women in policing are able to achieve more positive outcomes in confrontational situations — and that’s what she did.”

From catching rapists to snaring bootleggers, Foley eventually became a detective in the homicide division in Queens.

“No matter where she worked, she stayed true to herself and her focus — protecting the innocent, the vulnerable, the at-risk,” says Eder.

Later, when she worked with Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey, she was instrumental in the successful conviction of Italian-born gagster Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano and in exposing the secrets of the pro-Nazi organization, the German American Bund.

Despite working in a male-dominated workplace, Foley’s pioneering police work encouraged over 2,000 women to join the NYPD.

“There were many others who served when Mae did, but their stories are lost in time — I wish I could find them all,” says Eder.

Even when she retired in 1941, Foley devoted her life to police work, becoming an advocate for officers and their families, fighting for better pay and benefits. 

In Queens, meanwhile, they made Foley’s birthday ‘Mae Foley Day.’