John Roebling was one of the nineteenth century's most brilliant
engineers, ingenious inventors, successful manufacturers, and
fascinating personalities. Raised in a German backwater amid the
war-torn chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, he immigrated to the US in
1831, where he became wealthy and acclaimed, eventually receiving a
carte-blanche contract to build one of the nineteenth century's
most stupendous and daring works of engineering: a gigantic
suspension bridge to span the East River between New York and
Brooklyn. In between, he thought, wrote, and worked tirelessly. He
dug canals and surveyed railroads; he planned communities and
founded new industries. Horace Greeley called him "a model
immigrant"; generations later, F. Scott Fitzgerald worked on a
script for the movie version of his life. Like his finest
creations, Roebling was held together by the delicate balance of
countervailing forces. On the surface, his life was exemplary and
his accomplishments legion. As an immigrant and employer, he was
respected throughout the world. As an engineer, his works
profoundly altered the physical landscape of America. He was a
voracious reader, a fervent abolitionist, and an engaged social
commentator. His understanding of the natural world however,
bordered on the occult and his opinions about medicine are best
described as medieval. For a man of science and great
self-certainty, he was also remarkably quick to seize on a whole
host of fads and foolish trends. Yet Roebling held these strands
together. Throughout his life, he believed in the moral application
of science and technology, that bridges-along with other great
works of connection, the Atlantic Cable, the Transcontinental
Railroad-could help bring people together, erase divisions, and
heal wounds. Like Walt Whitman, Roebling was deeply committed to
the creation of a more perfect union, forged from the raw materials
of the continent. John Roebling was a complex, deeply divided yet
undoubtedly influential figure, and this biography illuminates not
only his works but also the world of nineteenth-century America.
Roebling's engineering feats are well known, but the man himself is
not; for alongside the drama of large scale construction lies an
equally rich drama of intellectual and social development and
crisis, one that mirrored and reflected the great forces, trials,
and failures of nineteenth century America.
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