Washington Roebling

For more information on John Augustus Roebling, visit Britannica.com.

John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869), German-born American engineer, was noted for introducing the manufacture of wire rope to America and for constructing magnificent suspension bridges.

John Roebling was born in Mühlhausen, Thuringia (now part of Germany), on June 12, 1806. He obtained an excellent formal education, graduating from the Royal Polytechnic Institute at Berlin in 1826 with a degree in civil engineering. After working for 3 years on government road-building projects, he became dissatisfied with his life and opportunities in Germany. In 1831 Roebling and his brother, Karl, led a group of emigrants to the United States, where they established an agricultural community in western Pennsylvania.

Unsuccessful as a farmer, Roebling returned to engineering in 1837 and was employed by the state of Pennsylvania on various canal and railroad projects. He became interested in the Allegheny Portage Railroad linking the eastern and western sections of the Pennsylvania Canal, where he observed the difficulties involved in hauling bisected canal boats up and down the inclined planes of the railway. Roebling suggested using wire rope for hauling in place of the bulky and expensive fiber ropes which rapidly frayed and parted. He had read of experiments in Germany with ropes made of twisted wire but had not seen any. He made a number of experiments and eventually convinced the state Board of Public Works to test his idea; consequently, in 1841 Roebling manufactured the first wire cable in America. His small factory in Saxonburg, Pa., was equipped with machinery of his own design and fabrication. In the late 1840s the wire cable factory was relocated at Trenton, N.J., where Roebling subsequently made his home.

In 1844-1845 Roebling built his first structure utilizing his wire cables. He erected a wooden canal aqueduct across the Allegheny River. It consisted of seven spans, each 162 feet long, all supported by two 7-inch wire cables. Following this unprecedented achievement, Roebling built his first suspension bridge in 1845-1846; it was to carry a highway across the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh and consisted of eight spans of 188 feet each. Although he was anticipated in building wire suspension bridges by Charles Ellet, Jr., who in 1842 successfully introduced this type of design, Roebling achieved greater success and eminence in the field.

In many ways Roebling's most notable work was the pioneer railroad suspension bridge built at Niagara Falls between 1851 and 1855. This structure was begun in 1847 by Ellet, who withdrew from the job in 1849 after building a footbridge. Roebling built the railroad bridge, thus solidifying his reputation as the foremost suspension bridge builder in America. He subsequently built bridges over the Allegheny River at Pittsburgh (1860) and the Ohio River at Cincinnati (1867). Roebling's special building techniques included wrapping the numerous wires composing the cables. He also used special stiffening and bracing cables to protect against the weather and to add rigidity to the entire structure.

When plans for a bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge) over the East River connecting lower Manhattan and Brooklyn were revived in the 1860s, Roebling was appointed chief engineer of the mammoth project. His plans for the undertaking were approved in 1869, and work was about to begin when Roebling suffered the accident which cost him his life. On June 28, while he was working at the bridge site, a ferryboat rammed the piling on which Roebling was standing and crushed his foot. The injured toes were amputated, but tetanus set in and he died on July 22, 1869. The Brooklyn Bridge, completed 14 years later under the supervision of Roebling's son, Washington, remains an enduring monument to the Roeblings.

Further Reading

One of the best biography of Roebling is D. B. Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge: The Story of John Roebling and His Son (1945), a comprehensive, well-researched study presented with a lively style but with a partisan flavor; it is based on a book by Hamilton Schuyler, The Roeblings: A Century of Engineers, Bridge-builders and Industrialists (1931), which quotes from primary sources. A dated but useful work is Charles B. Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America (1871). See also Gene D. Lewis's scholarly biography of another pioneer suspension bridge builder, Charles Ellet, Jr.: The Engineer as Individualist, 1810-1862 (1968), and Carl W. Condit, American Building Art: The Nineteenth Century (1960), for the excellent chapters on bridges.

Additional Sources

Sayenga, Donald, Ellet and Roebling, York, PA: American Canal and Transportation Center, 1983.

German-born American engineer. In 1841–9 he perfected the manufacture of twisted-wire cables which he employed to suspend the Pennsylvania State Canal aqueduct above the Allegheny River (1844–5), a work that won him recognition. With his son, Washington Augustus Roebling (1837–1926), he designed the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC (1869–83), then the longest suspension-bridge in the world. J. A. Roebling published Long and Short Span Railway Bridges (1869).

Bibliography

• Condit (1960, 1968)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• H. Schuyler (1931)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• A.Trachtenberg (1965)
• Vogel (1971)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Washington Augustus Roebling
Washington Augustus Roebling (1837-1926)
Personal information
Name	Washington Augustus Roebling
Nationality	American (German-heritage)
Birth date	May 26, 1837(1837-05-26)
Birth place	Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Date of death	July 21, 1926 (aged 89)
Place of death	Trenton, New Jersey, USA
Work
Significant buildings	Allegheny Bridge, Cincinnati-Covington Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge

Washington Augustus Roebling (May 26, 1837 – July 21, 1926) was an American civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was initially designed by his father John A. Roebling.

Contents 1 Biography 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links

Biography

The eldest son of John Roebling, Washington was born in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, a town co-founded by his father and his uncle, Karl Roebling. His early schooling consisted of tutoring by Riedel and under Henne in Pittsburgh. He eventually attended the Trenton Academy and acquired further education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, from 1854-57. Following his graduation as civil engineer (C.E.), he joined his father to work as a bridge builder. From 1858 to 1860, he assisted his father on the Allegheny Bridge project, living in a boarding house on Penn Street. Following the completion of the bridge, he returned to Trenton to work in his father's wire mill.

On April 16, 1861, Roebling enlisted as a private in the New Jersey Militia. Seeking more than garrison duty, he resigned after two months and re-enlisted with the New York Artillery, United States Army. During the American Civil War, Roebling saw action repeatedly, most notably at the Battle of Gettysburg. Days before the battle started, he noted the movement of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army toward the North while conducting air balloon reconnaissance. On July 2, 1863, Roebling was one of the initial soldiers on Little Round Top. Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, for whom Roebling was aide-de-camp, ordered him to find a regiment to secure its important tactical position. The first regiment he came upon was commanded by Col. Strong Vincent of the V Corps, whose brigade immediately occupied the hill and defended the left flank of the Army of the Potomac against repeated Confederate attacks. Roebling assisted in hoisting artillery up the hill with several others.

Roebling was brevetted lieutenant colonel in December 1864 for gallant service, ending his service brevetted colonel. From mid-1865 to 1867, he worked with his father on the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge (now the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge). While traveling in Europe to research bridges and caisson foundations, his only son, John A. Roebling, II, was born. After returning in 1868, Washington became assistant engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, and rose to chief engineer after his father's death in mid-1869. He made several important improvements on the bridge design and further developed bridge building techniques.

Decompression sickness ("the bends") due to working in compressed air under the river, combined with over work, shattered his health and rendered him unable to visit the site, but he continued to oversee the Brooklyn project to successful completion in 1883.^[1] His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, took over the day-to-day supervision and visits to the site and successfully lobbied for retention of him as chief engineer. Roebling would battle the after-effects from the disease and various treatments the rest of his life.

Following the Brooklyn project, Roebling and his wife lived in Troy, New York, from 1884-88, as their only child, John A. Roebling, II, also attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). When their son graduated, the Roeblings returned to Trenton, moving to 191 West State Street in 1892. From 1902-1903 Roebling served as President of the Alumni Association at Rensselaer. His wife Emily died in 1903 from stomach cancer. Roebling remarried in 1908 to Cornelia Witsell Farrow of Charleston, South Carolina.

His namesake, Washington Augustus Roebling II, only son of his brother Charles G. Roebling, went down with the RMS Titanic in 1912.

Following the sudden death of his nephew, Karl Gustavus Roebling, in 1921, Roebling again became president of John A. Roebling's Sons Company at age 84. He died in 1926, after being bedridden for two months, at age 89.

Roebling's most passionate hobby was collecting rocks and minerals. His collection of over 16,000 specimens was donated by his son, John A. Roebling, II, to the Smithsonian Institution and became an important part of its mineral and gem collection.

A plethora of his manuscripts, photographs, and publications, can be found in the Roebling collections at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

See also

American Civil War portal

United States Army portal

References

1. ^ Butler WP (2004). "Caisson disease during the construction of the Eads and Brooklyn Bridges: A review". Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine 31 (4): 445–59. PMID 15686275. http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/4028. Retrieved on 2009-03-11. 

Further reading

• McCullough, David. (1972). The Great Bridge. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-21213-3
• McCullough, David. (1992). Brave Companions. New York, NY: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-671-79276-8
• Sayenga, Donald. (1983; 2nd ed. 2001) Ellet and Roebling ISBN 0-930973-25-9
• Schuyler, Hamilton. (1931). The Roeblings: A Century of Engineers, Bridge Builders, and Industrialists. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Steinman, David B. (1945). The Builders of the Bridge. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

External links

• Roebling on civilwarstudies.org
• Washington Augustus Roebling information at Structurae
• Biography and photograph on inventionfactory.com
• Emily Warren Roebling & Washington A. Roebling at Rensselaer Hall of Fame
• Roebling Collection at Rensselaer Library
• John Roebling Historic Saxonburg Society

Persondata
NAME	Roebling, Washington
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Union United States Army officer
DATE OF BIRTH	May 26, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH	Saxonburg, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	July 21, 1926
PLACE OF DEATH	Trenton, New Jersey

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