This Day in History: John A. Roebling, civil engineer was born on June 12, 1806

Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge

On June 12, 1806, John A. Roebling, civil engineer and designer of bridges, was born in Mühlhausen, Prussia. The Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling’s last and greatest achievement, spans New York’s East River to connect Manhattan with Brooklyn. When completed in 1883, the bridge, with its massive stone towers and a main span of 1,595.5 feet between them, was by far the longest suspension bridge in the world. Today, the Brooklyn Bridge is hailed as a key feature of New York’s City’s urban landscape, standing as a monument to progress and ingenuity as well as symbolizing New York’s ongoing cultural vitality.

Roebling’s suspension bridges

John A. Roebling came to design suspension bridges through his earlier work on canals. Trained as an engineer at Berlin’s Royal Polytechnic Institute, Roebling emigrated to the United States in 1831, helping to settle the farming community of Saxonburg in western Pennsylvania. He was soon employed to work on the extensive canal system then being built for travel across the state. One element of that system was a series of inclined planes used to haul barges along railway tracks over steep terrain. Troubled by their reliance on dangerously breakable hemp rope, in about 1839, Roebling turned his efforts toward the manufacture of strong but flexible wire rope as an alternative. Roebling’s invention soon was being used by the Allegheny Portage Railroad; he received a patent for his “new and Improved Mode of Manufacturing Wire Ropes” in 1842.

Roebling quickly found additional uses for his invention. His first wire cable suspension bridge (1844-45) was a wooden aqueduct that carried Pennsylvania’s main east-west canal above and across the Allegheny River into downtown Pittsburgh. He received additional patents in 1846 and 1847. Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct (1847-48) followed closely on his earlier design and is the oldest surviving suspension bridge in America. In pursuing these projects, Roebling developed a viable method of spinning the heavy wrought iron wire cables on site, as well as a simple and secure way to anchor them—both of which made the construction of long suspension bridges feasible.

Washington A Roebling

In July 1869, soon after construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began, John Roebling died from tetanus contracted when his foot was crushed in an accident on site. Almost immediately, Roebling’s 32-year-old son and partner, Washington A. Roebling, was named chief engineer in his place. Other mishaps, including an explosion, a fire, contractor fraud, and Washington Roebling’s own illness, hampered timely completion of the project.

1883 Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge opened to citywide celebration on May 24, 1883. Over the next hundred years, the bridge became part of the romance of New York City. Poets and artists have long found the bridge a worthy subject and the Brooklyn Bridge continues to serve as the backdrop in countless photographs and films.

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator, et al., photographers by Boucher, Jack E, Jet Lowe, and David Sharpe. Brooklyn Bridge, Spanning East River between Park Row, Manhattan and Sands Street, Brooklyn, New York County, NY. trans by Jandoli, Lizmitter Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ny1234/>.

On September 11, 2001, the Brooklyn Bridge took on a different form of symbolism. In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, thousands of pedestrians used the bridge to escape Lower Manhattan on foot.

Source: Library of Congress