Description
Book SynopsisEngineering America narrates how Johann August Röbling, the third child of a provincial German tobacconist, became John A. Roebling, world-renowned American engineer, wealthy manufacturer, and designer of the Brooklyn Bridge and other great engineering feats of nineteenth-century America.
Trade ReviewRichard Haw's Engineering America...succeeds as a remarkable work of primary source scholarship, one that brings Roebling to life in all his human complexity...[with] care and empathy....A great strength of Haw's analysis derives from his engagement with the cultural, social, and economic context of Roebling's life....For those most interested in Roebling's work as a designer/builder of suspension bridges, Engineering America will not disappoint. * Donald C. Jackson, Technology and Culture *
A remarkable work of primary source scholarship * Donald C. Jackson, Technology and Culture *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: "Fitting One's Self for the New World" Part One: Novice (1806-1831) Chapter 1: In Napoleon's Shadow (1806-1824) Chapter 2: Berlin and the Culture of Revolution (1824-1825) Chapter 3: Westphalia: Building Roads, Designing Bridges (1825-1829) Chapter 4: Johann Etzler and the Mühlhausen Emigration Society (1829-1831) Chapter 5: Across the Atlantic (1831) Part Two: Apprentice (1831-1847) Chapter 6: And out to Western Pennsylvania (1831-1832) Chapter 7: Establishing Saxonburg (1832-1837) Chapter 8: Internal Improvements (1838-1841) Chapter 9: Making Wire Rope and the Wire Rope Industry (1840-1848) Chapter 10: Private Life, Public Works (1844-1845) Chapter 11: Rebuilding Pittsburgh: Finishing the Allegheny, Spanning the Monongahela (1845-1846) Chapter 12: Setting the Future (1846-1847) Part Three: Master (1848-69) Chapter 13: Economies of Scale (1848-1852) Chapter 14: Crossing Niagara (1846-48) Chapter 15: Securing Niagara (1852-55) Chapter 16: The Kentucky, Ohio and Allegheny (1856-1860) Chapter 17: And the War Came (1861-1865) Chapter 18: Unfinished Business (1863-1869) Epilogue: "I am my own Judge" Notes Index
