Fortune Magazine called her "America's first female CEO of an industrial company" and its board of editors named her to the National Business Hall of Fame in 1994.

The steel plate was used to construct the first metal hulled steamboat in America, the Codorus,[3] and was later used as boilerplate in steam engines and locomotives.

[8] During World War II the Liberty ship SS Rebecca Lukens was built in Panama City, Florida, and named in her honor.

[9] On January 6, 1994, the 200th anniversary of Lukens' birth, the Pennsylvania Legislature and City of Coatesville declared her "America’s first woman industrialist.

In 2020, Lukens was one of eight women featured in "The Only One in the Room" display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.