WASHINGTON ROEBLING:
BRIDGE BUILDER
According to the author of
Although designed by his father, it was the son Washington Roebling who
was the chief engineer that saw through to its conclusion the construction
of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Great Bridge David
McCullough, there had been
talk of spanning New York’s
East River for ‘as long as
anyone can remember’. The
reason for the project never
ge ing further than ‘just talk’ was
because the stretch of water in question
contained the busiest shipping lanes
in the world, playing host to the largest
vessels ever built. Any bridge connecting
the two cities (as they were then) of New
York and Brooklyn would need to be
high enough to allow the masts of great
ships to pass beneath. Not only would
such an enterprise need to be the longest
suspension bridge ever built, it would
also have to withstand the Atlantic gales.
As with so many of the great 19th
century landmarks, the story of the
Brooklyn Bridge (that wasn’t even named
formally as such until 1915) spanned the
generations. Reduced to the simplest
of narratives, it was designed by the
immigrant Prussian civil engineer
John A Roebling and seen through
the construction phase by his son
Washington until its offi cial opening on
24 May 1883. But the story is in reality
much more complex, and the role played
by Washington’s wife Emily Warren
Roebling in ensuring the completion of
the 14-year endeavour – often directing
operations from her husband’s sickbed
– is frequently underestimated. In fact,
such was her importance to the delivery
of the project that Emily was the fi rst
person to cross this designated National
Historic Civil Engineering Landmark,
closely followed by the great and the good
Written BY nick smith
Washington Roebling 1837-1926
July 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk 32
father’s wire mill in Trenton.
1861 saw the outbreak of the
American Civil War and Roebling was
quick to enlist with the New Jersey
Militia before changing direction and
re-enlisting with a New York artillery
ba ery, where he became involved
with suspension bridge construction,
saw action in the Ba le of Ge ysburg
and, while performing balloon
reconnaissance, was to witness Robert
E Lee’s Confederate Army striking
northwards. After a distinguished
military career, he emerged from the
war having been breve ed to the rank
of colonel and later becoming a veteran
companion of the Military Order of
the Loyal Legion of the United States.
Resuming civilian life, he returned to
his civil engineering career, working
with his father on the Covington &
Cincinnati Suspension Bridge (that was
the longest suspension bridge of its time
and subsequently renamed in honour
of Roebling senior), before becoming
assistant engineer on the
Brooklyn Bridge project (of which
his father was chief engineer) in
1868.
John A Roebling’s idea for
a crossing over the East River
goes back to 1855 when, having
become frustrated by the lack of
progress on the Atlantic Avenue to
Fulton Street Ferry, he proposed
a suspension bridge comprising
two granite towers and four
mighty cables. Initially Roebling’s
proposal was met with a distinct
lack of enthusiasm by authorities
from both New York and Brooklyn
L ate, great engineers
of both cities, as well as assorted livestock.
Washington Augustus Roebling was born in 1837 in the
town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. His 21st century biographer
Erica Wagner describes both time and place as, “the frontier
of the United States. His father had come from Germany in
1831and had built up the American wire rope industry. So
Washington went from a rural childhood to the forefront of
American industry.” He also grew up in the Land of Opportunity
and entrepreneurism: his father, along with his uncle Carl
founded the town Washington grew up in, and his childhood
propelled him in his father’s footsteps towards an education in
engineering. By the time he was 17 years old he was studying at
the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York where
he wrote a thesis entitled Design for a Suspension Aqueduct.
Graduating as a civil engineer, his fi rst main project was to
assist his father on the Allegheny River Bridge in Pi sburgh,
Pennsylvania, where the young engineer fi rst encountered wire
cables in bridge construction, after which he went to work at his
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