Review of The Roebling Legacy by Clifford W. Zink

The Brooklyn Bridge is the most famous bridge in the United States and the crowning achievement of the Roeblings, legendary designers and builders of landmark suspension bridges and cables. John A. Roebling saw his big suspension bridges as not just utilitarian structures, but as public works of art that “should educate public taste.” At the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge in 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called it “a New York City icon and an enduring symbol of America’s greatness.”

The Roebling Legacy, a new book by Princeton-based historian Clifford W. Zink, chronicles the story of the Roeblings and their remarkable engineering legacy over two centuries. John A. Roebling was born in Prussia in 1806, and Napoleon’s conquest of the kingdom just 4 months later prompted educational reforms that greatly benefited Roebling’s development as an engineer. He learned basic mathematics, physics, and drafting at the free gymnasium school in his town, studied advanced mathematics and geometry at a small private institute under a renowned mathematician, and then studied drawing, architecture, and engineering with Prussia’s premier technical educators at the Royal Building Academy in Berlin, Germany.

Claude Navier’s 1823 treatise on suspension bridges fascinated Roebling and led him to extensively study their theory and construction. After emigrating to the United States and settling in western Pennsylvania in 1831, Roebling developed wire rope for inclined planes on canals and launched a manufacturing business that operated for 133 years. In 1843, Roebling wrote an article on suspension bridges for the American Railroad Journal and enumerated the advantages of wire cables over chains. He built his first suspension bridge, a canal aqueduct, in 1845 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and immediately patented his methods of aerial wire spinning and cable anchoring. Roebling’s 1848 Delaware Aqueduct in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, is operated by the National Park Service and is the oldest suspension bridge in the United States.

Roebling’s completion of his 800-ft span Niagara Suspension Bridge in 1855 brought him wide recognition as the world’s leading suspension bridge engineer. Assisted by his son, Washington A. Roebling, who graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1857, Roebling completed the 322-m (1,056-ft) span Cincinnati-Covington Bridge in 1867. Today, it is known as the John A. Roebling Bridge and prepared the way for the Brooklyn Bridge.

When Roebling designed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1867, he wrote that “it will not only be the greatest bridge in existence, but it will be the greatest engineering work of the continent and of the age.” He was right, of course, but he died tragically in an accident while preparing for the bridge’s construction. Washington took his place as Chief Engineer and famously completed the bridge in 1883 with help from his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, after he suffered his own construction injuries.

The John A. Roebling’s Sons Company subsequently became the leading builder of suspension bridge cables, and erected the cables on the Williamsburg Bridge (1903), Manhattan Bridge (1909), and Bear Mountain Bridge (1924), all with spans similar to the Brooklyn Bridge’s. Roebling engineers made a great leap forward, with many innovations in building the great 0.9-m (36-in.) cables in 1931 on the 1,097-m (3,600-ft) span George Washington Bridge, and in 1937 on the 1,280-m (4,200-ft) span Golden Gate Bridge, both completed months ahead of schedule. Roebling engineers built the cables on the second Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a 878-m (2,800-ft) span, in 1952.

The Roebling Legacy vividly portrays the classic American saga of the Roeblings and their numerous engineering accomplishments, with extensive excerpts of original family documents and 470 illustrations. Information on the book can be found at http://www.roeblinglegacy.com. This book is a must-read for every bridge engineer to develop an appreciation for the contributions of John Roebling.