The Great Bridge (86 page)

Farrington, E. F.,
Concise Description of the East River Bridge, with Full Details of the Construction.
(Pamphlet) C. D. Wynkoop, New York, 1881. Republished in 1969 by Boro Book Store, Brooklyn.

Green, S. W.,
A Complete History of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge from its Conception in 1866 to its Completion in 1883, with Sketches of the Lives of J. A. Roebling, W. A. Roebling, and H. C. Murphy.
(Pamphlet) New York, 1883.

An Illustrated Description of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge.
(Pamphlet) Published by John A. Roebling’s Sons, Trenton, no date.

New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884.
Brooklyn, 1885. (This thick invaluable volume contains the only records kept of the meetings of the directors—later the trustees—of the Bridge Company, the meetings of the Executive Committee, lists of the stockholders at various periods during the construction of the bridge, lists of real estate purchased, plus all other reports, letters, etc., emanating from the Bridge Company during the time from May 1867 to June 1884.)

Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge.
Brooklyn, 1883.

Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers to the Directors of the New York Bridge Company.
The Standard Press Print, Brooklyn, 1869.

Schuyler, Montgomery, “The Bridge as a Monument.”
Harper’s Weekly,
May 24, 1883. Also included in Lewis Mumford’s
Roots of Contemporary American Architecture,
Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1952; paperback edition, Grove Press, New York, 1959.

Testimony in the Miller Suit to Remove the East River Bridge.
Albany, 1879.

Trachtenberg, Alan,
Brooklyn Bridge; Fact and Symbol.
(An excellent analysis of the bridge as a cultural symbol in America.) Oxford University Press, New York, 1965.

Works Relating to John A. and Washington A. Roebling

There is no first-rate biography of either John A. or Washington A. Roebling. The closest thing to it and the one reliable source of family history is
The Roeblings; A Century of Engineers, Bridgebuilders and Industrialists
by Hamilton Schuyler, Princeton University Press, 1931. Other works consulted were these:

Farrington, E. F.,
A Full and Complete Description of the Covington and Cincinnati Suspension Bridge with Dimensions and Details of Construction.
Cincinnati, 1867.

John A. Roebling. An Account of the Ceremonies at the Unveiling of a Monument to His Memory; Address by H. Estabrook.
Roebling Press, Trenton, 1908.

Roebling, John A.,
Diary of My Journey from Muehlhausen in Thuringia via Bremen to the United States of North America in the Year 1831,
trans. by Edward Underwood. Roebling Press, Trenton, 1931.

_____
Final Report of John A. Roebling, Civil Engineer, to the President and Directors of the Niagara Falls Suspension and Niagara Falls International Bridge Companies.
Rochester, N. Y., 1855

_____ “The Great Central Railroad from Philadelphia to St. Louis.”
American Railroad Journal,
Special Edition, 1847.

_____ “Letters to Ferdinand Baehr, 1831.”
Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine,
June 1935.

_____
Long and Short Span Railway Bridges.
(Includes an introduction by Washington Roebling.) D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1869.

_____
Report to the President and Board of Directors of the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge Company.
Trenton, 1867.

Roebling, Washington A.,
Early History of Saxonburg.
Trenton, 1924.

Steinman, D. B.,
The Builders of the Bridge.
Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1945. (The author was a famous bridgebuilder himself and was long considered the authority on John A. Roebling. His book, however, was based on superficial research and contains many inaccuracies.)

Vogel, Robert M.,
Roebling’s Delaware and Hudson Canal Aqueducts.
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 1971.

Books on Bridges and Bridgebuilders

Dorsey, Florence L.,
Road to the Sea.
Rinehart & Company, New York, 1947.

Gies, Joseph, Bridges
and Men
. Doubleday and Company, Garden City, N. Y., 1963.

Gilbert, Ralph W., Jr., and Billington, David P., “The Eads Bridge and Nineteenth-Century River Politics.” Paper read at the First National Conference on Civil Engineering: History, Heritage and the Humanities, Princeton University, 1970.

Jacobs, David, and Neville, Anthony E.,
Bridges, Canals and Tunnels.
American Heritage Publishing Company, New York, 1968.

Jakkula, A. A.,
A History of Suspension Bridges in Bibliographical Form.
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, College Station, Texas, 1941.

Kirby, Richard Shelton, and Laurson, Philip Gustave,
The Early Years of Modern Civil Engineering.
Yale University Press, New Haven, 1932.

Pope, Thomas,
A Treatise on Bridge Architecture, in which the Superior Advantages of the Flying Pendent Lever Bridge are Fully Proved.
New York, 1811.

Steinman, David B., and Watson, Sara Ruth,
Bridges and Their Builders,
2nd rev. ed. Dover Publications, New York, 1957.

Stuart, C. B.,
Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America.
D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1871.

Vose, George L.,
Bridge Disasters in America.
Boston, 1887.

White, Joseph, and Von Bernewitz, M. W.,
The Bridges of Pittsburgh.
Cramer Printing and Publishing Company, Pittsburgh, 1928.

Woodward, C. M.,
A History of the St. Louis Bridge.
G. I. Jones and Company, St. Louis, 1881.

General Works

An Account of the Dinner by the Hamilton Club to Honor James S. T. Stranahan, December 13, 1888.
Brooklyn, 1889. Collection of the Long Island Historical Society.

Adams, Henry,
The Education of Henry Adams.
Houghton Miffin Company, Sentry Edition, Boston, 1961.

Albion, Robert Greenhalgh,
The Rise of New York Port
(1815-1860). Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1939.

Andrist, Ralph K., ed.,
The Confident Years.
American Heritage Publishing Company, New York, 1969.

Blake, William,
History of Putnam County, New York.
New York, 1849.

Botkin, B. A., ed.,
New York City Folklore.
Random House, New York, 1956.

The Brooklyn City and Business Directory, 1869, 1870.

Brown, Dee,
The Year of the Century:
1876. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1966.

Bryce, James,
The American Commonwealth.
Macmillan and Company, New York and London, 1895.

Buck, Solon J. and Elizabeth Hawthorn,
The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania.
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1939.

Butterfield, Roger,
The American Past.
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966.

Callender, James H.,
Yesterdays on Brooklyn Heights.
The Dorland Press, New York, 1927.

Callow, Alexander B., Jr.,
The Tweed Ring.
Oxford University Press, New York, 1966.

Carnegie, Andrew,
Autobiography.
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1920.

Catton, Bruce,
Grant Moves South.
Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1960.

_____
A Stillness at Appomattox.
Doubleday and Company, Garden City, N. Y., 1954.

The City of Brooklyn.
(A guidebook, probably written by Henry R. Stiles.) New York, 1871.

Condit, Carl W.,
American Building.
University of Chicago Press, 1968.

Craig, Neville B.,
The Olden Time,
Vol. I. Pittsburgh, 1846.

Davis, Andrew Jackson,
Free Thoughts Concerning Religion.
Boston, 1854.

_____
The Magic Staff, An Autobiography.
New York, 1857.

Ellis, Edward Robb,
The Epic of New York.
Coward-McCann, New York, 1966.

Fiftieth Anniversary Program.
Putnam County Historical Society.

Fiske, Stephen,
Off-Hand Portraits of Prominent New Yorkers.
George R. Lockwood and Son, New York, 1884.

Foster, L. H.,
Newport Guide.
1876.

Franco, Barbara, “The Cardiff Giant: A Hundred-Year-Old Hoax.”
New York History,
October 1969.

Genung, Abram,
The Frauds of the N.Y.C. Government Exposed.
New York, 1871.

George, Henry,
Social Problems.
New York, 1883.

Hansen, Marcus Lee,
The Immigrant in American History.
Harvard University Press, 1940.

Historical Sketch of the Fulton Ferry.
Brooklyn, 1879.

History of Butler County, Pennsylvania.
Waterman, Watkins and Company, Chicago, 1883.

Howard, Henry W. B., ed.,
History of The City of Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, 1893.

Johnston, Johanna,
Mrs. Satan.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1967.

Josephson,
Matthew,
Edison. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1959.

Josephson, Matthew and Hannah,
Al Smith, Hero of the Cities.
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1969.

Kaplan, Justin,
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain.
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966.

Keller, Morton,
The Art and Politics of Thomas Nast.
Oxford University Press, New York, 1968.

W. C. Kingsley.
Privately published, Brooklyn, 1885. Collection of the Long Island Historical Society.

Kouwenhoven, John A.,
The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York.
Doubleday and Company, Garden City, N. Y., 1953.

Lancaster, Clay,
Old Brooklyn Heights.
Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vt., 1961.