A Bridge Between the Continents
John Augustus Roebling (1806–1869) was born in the city of Mühlhausen, Germany (Prussia at the time of his birth), during the growth of the country’s industrialization. Roebling grew up with an interest in engineering, and at 18 he became a government surveyor. At around the same time, he moved to Berlin to study engineering and architecture at the Bauakademie (Building Academy). He spent two semesters at the Bauakademie learning about hydraulic systems and bridge construction. Over the next five years, he worked in Arnsberg building military roads and surveying. His enthusiasm, however, was for bridges, specifically, suspension bridges.While Roebling was working as a government surveyor, Johann Etzler, a German inventor, had been visiting America. Etzler returned to Germany in hopes of recruiting Germans to immigrate to the United States. His plan was to create a German commune and manufacturing hub. Etzler and Roebling became friends, and when the July Revolution of 1830 broke out in France, Roebling was further convinced to immigrate. Fortuitously, that same year in Bamberg, Germany, he saw his first suspension bridge. By 1831, Roebling had arrived, along with his brother Carl, in the German farming commune of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania.
Working in America
In 1836, he married Johanna Herting and had a son, Washington. The following year he applied for and received American citizenship. Farming quickly proved a bad fit for the engineer, and he took jobs as a surveyor and builder. In 1839, he assisted in surveying a Pennsylvania railroad line. He noticed that suspension bridges in America often used hemp rope, like the kind used for the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which opened in 1834.This railroad system was the first to go over the Allegheny Mountains. Roebling, who had been experimenting with braided wire rope, was convinced that metal would be stronger, safer, less expensive, and last much longer than hemp.
He began selling his metal rope primarily to coal mining companies. In 1842, however, his wire rope had become well known in the engineering community, and it replaced the hemp rope on Incline 3 on the Allegheny Portage Railroad. His wire rope soon replaced all the hemp on the railroad. A few years later, disaster required Roebling’s services. The Great Fire of 1845 had decimated Pittsburgh, and the Monongahela Bridge along with it. Roebling proposed a bridge suspended by wire cables. His design was accepted and it was the first of its kind in the United States.
His Great Works
By 1849, Roebling moved his family and work to Trenton, New Jersey. His bridges crossed rivers, traversed mountains, and connected states. Now, he was presented with an opportunity to cross a river to connect countries.
Roebling designed a suspension bridge across the Niagara River just a short distance downstream of the Niagara Falls. The bridge created a railroad connection between the United States and Canada, but it also included a box truss, which allowed for foot traffic and carriages to cross below the railroad section. The completion of the Niagara Suspension Bridge made Roebling an engineer of international acclaim.
Designing the Brooklyn Bridge
His bridges had crossed the Allegheny, Monongahela, Niagara, and Ohio rivers. Now, he would conquer the East River. In the spring of 1867, only months after the opening of the Covington-Cincinnati Bridge, he was hired by The New York Bridge Company to be the chief engineer of the East River project. The goal for the project was to connect the country’s largest and third largest cities: Manhattan and Brooklyn.Roebling designed what would become known as the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge. It possesses two granite piers, both standing 276.5 feet above the water’s mean (a height only five feet shorter than the city’s tallest building at the time). They were built 78.5 and 44.5 feet below the water on the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides, respectively.
The bridge is a third larger than Roebling’s record setting Covington-Cincinnati Bridge at 1,595.5 feet. In the same vein as the Niagara Suspension Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge was designed as two-tiers with an 85-foot wide promenade. This time, however, the foot traffic was placed above.
Only six months after Congress authorized the building of the bridge, Roebling tragically died. While conducting a final survey with his son, Roebling was hit by a ferry boat, which crushed the toes on his right foot. Although his toes were amputated, he contracted tetanus and died two weeks after the accident.
Washington was placed in charge of completing his father’s greatest design. The Brooklyn Bridge is arguably New York City’s first architecture icon and remains one of the largest tourist attractions in the city.
