As the only person to visit her husband during his sickness, Emily Roebling relayed information from Washington to his assistants and reported to him the progress of work on the bridge.

She developed an extensive knowledge of strength of materials, stress analysis, cable construction, and calculating catenary curves through Washington's teachings.

In advance of the official opening, carrying a rooster as a sign of victory, Emily Roebling was the first to cross the bridge by carriage.

[11] At the opening ceremony, Roebling was honored in a speech by Abram Stevens Hewitt, who said that the bridge was ...an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.

[12]Upon completion of her work on the Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling shifted to supporting several women's causes, including the Committee on Statistics of New Jersey's Board of Lady Managers for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Committee of Sorosis; Daughters of the American Revolution, George Washington Memorial Association, both of which worked on historical issues for the US; and Evelyn College.

She traveled widely—in 1896 she was presented to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and she was in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire, for the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II.

[14] Roebling is known for her influential essay, "A Wife's Disabilities" (1899), published in the Albany Law Journal, which won wide acclaim and awards.

[19] Roebling's role in the successful completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, and her status as a woman in the United States during the late-nineteenth century, is highlighted in season two of the HBO period drama The Gilded Age.

[20][21] In May 2024, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, her husband and son's Alma Mater, honored Roebling with a posthumous honorary doctorate as part of its bicentenial commencement.