- John A. Roebling
Infobox Architect
caption=John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869)
name=John Augustus Roebling
nationality=Prussian
birth_date=June 12, 1806
birth_place=Mühlhausen, German Kingdom of Prussia
death_date=July 22, 1869
death_place=Brooklyn Heights, New York, USA
practice_name=
significant_buildings=Allegheny River Aqueduct, Monongahela River Suspension Bridge, Cincinnati-Covington Bridge
significant_projects=(see below)
awards=|John Augustus Roebling (born Johann August Röbling,
June 12 ,1806 inMühlhausen -July 22 ,1869 ) was a German-born civil engineer famous for hiswire rope suspension bridge designs, in particular, the design of theBrooklyn Bridge .Early life
As a young boy Roebling enjoyed music such as playing the flute and the piano. He enjoyed listening to the melodies of
Bach and poetry ofGoethe . Roebling also had great artistic talent as portrayed in many of his paintings. He built a model bridge at the age of nine and later this bridge was noticed to be similar to the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling grew up in a time where the older students put on uniforms, shouldered muskets, and marched off to stopNapoleon and his army. John grew up in the city ofMühlhausen where the design of his bridges can be seen in the architecture of the city. TheGothic architecture ofMühlhausen can be seen as the root of John's "innate feeling for the beautiful and the enduring in construction." (Steinman, D. B. (1950))Education
John attended the public schools of Gymnasium in
Mühlhausen (at the age of 14 John passed the examination for the title of Master Builder or "Baumeister"), Realschule in Erfurt. Recognizing his intelligence at a young age, Roebling's mother, Friederike Dorothea Roebling secured enrollment for him at theRoyal Polytechnic Institute inBerlin where he studiedarchitecture andengineering under Rabe and Sluter, bridge construction and foundation construction underDietleyn ,hydraulics underEytelwein , languages, and philosophy, graduating in 1826 with a degree inCivil Engineering . Additionally, Roebling studied under famous German philosopherGeorg Hegel . Roebling became Hegel's protege, and completed a 2000 page treatise on his concept of the universe.Fact|date=November 2007Fleeing Europe
On May 22, 1831, Roebling left
Germany with his brother Karl and 40 friends and acquaintances. He wanted to build big bridges, which was difficult in Germany at the time. [ [http://www.bernd-nebel.de/bruecken/2_pioniere/roebling/roebling.html] ] Economic mobility and career advancement were very difficult in Prussian society. This unfortunate state of affairs had been brought about by theNapoleonic Wars , which lasted until 1815. This period inEuropean history leftPrussia with a great deal of political unrest, as authoritarian governments traded places with democratic ones. John and Karl, along with the people who accompanied them on the trans-Atlantic journey, purchased 1582 acres (6.4 km²) of land onOctober 28 ,1831 , inButler County, Pennsylvania ["Historic Saxonburg and Its Neighbors", Ralph Goldinger, ISBN 1-55856-043-2] and established a settlement, called Saxonburg.Career
John Roebling could not have arrived in the
United States at a better time. One year prior to his arrival, PresidentAndrew Jackson had authorized the use of nearly $100 million toward publicengineering projects, including the construction of roads, railroads, and canals. A dominant mode of thought in America at the time wasmanifest destiny and the opening up of the West, and so transportation between eastern industrial hubs and frontier markets had become a matter of both national and popular interest.Instead of continuing an engineering profession, he initially took up farming for a living. After five years he married a tailor's daughter, and had eight children with her over the next decade. Agrarian work was unsatisfactory to John Roebling, and in 1837, after the death of his brother and the birth of his first child, he returned to engineering.
Roebling's first engineering work in America was devoted to improving river navigation and
canal building. He spent three years surveying for railway lines across theAllegheny Mountains , fromHarrisburg to Pittsburgh, for the state ofPennsylvania . In 1840, he wrote to suspension bridge designerCharles Ellet, Jr. , offering to help with the design of a bridge near Philadelphia: [Steinman, David B. & Watson, Sara Ruth, "Bridges and their Builders", 1941]"The study of suspension bridges formed for the last few years of my residence in Europe my favourite occupation ... Let but a single bridge of the kind be put up in Philadelphia, exhibiting all the beautiful forms of the system to full advantage, and it needs no prophecy to foretell the effect which the novel and useful features will produce upon the intelligent minds of the Americans."
In 1841, at his workshop in Saxonburg, he began producing
wire rope . During this time, canal boats from Philadelphia had to be towed up and over the Allegheny Mountains on railroad cars to access waterways on the other side of the mountains so the boats could travel on to Pittsburgh. The system of inclines and levels that pulled the boats supported by railroad cars was called theAllegheny Portage Railroad . These railroad cars were pulled up the inclines by hemp rope up to nine inches thick. This rope eventually wore out, and as Roebling was watching a crew pull a boat up a hill one day, the rope snapped and sent the boat to the bottom of the mountain. Roebling then remembered an article he read in a German magazine about wire rope. Soon after, he started developing wire rope, which consists of strands of wire wound around an inner core to produce a tightly strung strand of cable. This wire rope was used in all of the suspension bridges that he designed. He had been fascinated with the idea of suspension bridges since his college days, and wrote his graduation thesis on the subject.In 1844, Roebling won a bid to replace the wooden canal
aqueduct across theAllegheny River . His design encompassed seven spans of 163 feet, each consisting of a wooden trunk to hold the water supported by a continuous wire cable on each side. That the design was successful was especially satisfying since a number of professional engineers had scoffed at the notion of a suspension aqueduct.This was followed in 1845 by building a suspension bridge over the
Monongahela River at Pittsburgh. In 1848, Roebling undertook the construction of four suspension aqueducts on theDelaware and Hudson Canal . During this period, he moved toTrenton, New Jersey .Roebling's next project, starting in 1851, was a railroad bridge connecting the
New York Central andGreat Western Railway of Canada over theNiagara River , which would take four years. The bridge, with a clear span of 825 feet, is supported by four, ten-inch wire cables, and has two levels, one for vehicles and one for rail traffic.While the Niagara bridge was being built, Roebling undertook another railway suspension bridge, across the
Kentucky River on the Southern Railroad fromCincinnati toChattanooga , which required a clear span of 1,224 feet. The anchorage and stone towers were completed, and the cable wire delivered along with the material for the superstructure, when the railway company collapsed: the bridge was left uncompleted.In 1858, Roebling started another suspension bridge at Pittsburgh, this one of 1,030 feet, divided into two spans of 344 feet each, and two side spans of 171 feet each.
The outbreak of the
American Civil War brought a temporary halt to Roebling's work. But during the war, in 1863, building resumed on a bridge over theOhio River atCincinnati which he had started in 1856 that was stopped due to financing difficulties; the bridge was finished in 1867. The Cincinnati-Covington Bridge, later named after himJohn A. Roebling Suspension Bridge , would be the world's longest suspension bridge until completion of the Brooklyn Bridge.In 1867 Roebling started design work on what is now called the
Brooklyn Bridge , spanning theEast River in New York. One day in 1869 he was standing at the edge of a dock, working on fixing the location where the bridge would be built, when his foot was crushed by an arriving ferry. His injured toes were amputated. He refused further medical treatment and wanted to cure his foot by "water therapy" (continuous pouring of water over the wound). While in the hospital, Roebling demanded constant updates on the progress of his greatest work and continued to help solve onsite problems. But his condition deteriorated until it was clear he hadtetanus , and 24 days after the accident he was dead. [McCullough, David, "The Great Bridge", 1982, p.91]Legacy
Roebling's son
Washington Roebling continued his work on the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling's 3rd sonCharles Roebling designed and invented the 80 ton wire rope machine and founded the town of Roebling, New Jersey where the John A. Roebling and Sons company steel mill was built. His grandson, Washington A. Roebling, II, died on theRMS Titanic . His great-grandson,Donald Roebling was a noted philanthropist and inventor who devised theamphtrack .Projects
*1844
Allegheny Aqueduct Bridge Pittsburgh, Pa. 162' spans - replaced 1881–1883
*1846Smithfield Street Bridge Pittsburgh, Pa. 188' spans
*1848Lackawaxen Aqueduct two spans of 115 feet each, and two 7-inch cables.
*1849Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct 4 spans of 134 feet each, and two 8-inch cables.
*1850High Falls Aqueduct one span of 145 feet, and two 8 1/2-inch cables [http://www.canalmuseum.org/history.htm D & H Canal Museum]
*1850Neversink Aqueduct one span of 170 feet, and two 8 1/2-inch cables
*1854Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge New York-Canada 821' span
*1859Allegheny Bridge Pittsburgh, Pa. 344' spans
*1867John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge - spanning theOhio River , 1,000 feet long with a deck clearance of 100 feet
*1869Waco Suspension Bridge 475 foot spanWaco, Texas
*1872 Barrett Bridge - spanningDelaware River atPort Jervis, New York , two 325-foot spans [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/orange/pj/] - Destroyed and rebuilt in 1875 [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A04E4DD1030EF34BC4951DFB566838E669FDE&oref=slogin The Wreck of the Barrett Bridge at Port Jervis - New York Times - March 21, 1875] ] [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E03EFD8153BEF34BC4052DFB566838E669FDE The Port Jervis Flood - New York Times - March 18, 1875] ] - Permanently destroyed in 1903 flood
*1883Brooklyn Bridge NYC-Brooklyn, N.Y. 1595' spanExternal links
* [http://www.inventionfactory.com/history/RHAgen/jarbio.html Invention Factory: Detailed biography]
*
* [http://www.historicsaxonburg.com John Roebling Historic Saxonburg Society]References
Reier, Sharon. The Bridges of New York. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc., 2000.
McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
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