rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Engineering America
    sub title: the life and times of John A. Roebling
  name:
    name part: Haw, Richard
    name part: 1968-
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: biography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nyu
    date issued: 2020
    copyright date: 2020
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: xi, 628 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
  abstract: 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 United States 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 f…
  table of contents: Introduction : "Fitting one's self for the New World" -- Part 1. Novice (1806-1831) -- In Napoleon's shadow (1806-1824) -- Berlin and the culture of revolution (1824-1825) -- Building roads, designing bridges (1825-1829) -- Johann Etzler and the Mühlhausen Emigration Society (1829-1831) -- Across the Atlantic (1831) -- Part 2. Apprentice (1831-1847) -- And out to Western Pennsylvania (1831-1832) -- Establishing Saxonburg (1832-1837) -- Internal improvements (1838-1841) -- Making wire rope and the wire rope industry (1840-1848) -- Private life, public works (1844-1845) -- Rebuilding Pittsburgh (1845-1846) -- Setting the future (1846-1847) -- Part 3. Master (1848-69) -- Economies of scale (1848-1852) -- Crossing Niagara (1846-48) -- Securing Niagara (1852-55) -- The Kentucky, Ohio, and Allegheny (1856-1860) -- And the war came (1861-1865) -- Unfinished business (1863-1869) -- Epilogue: "I am my own judge."
  note: Richard Haw.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    geographic code: n-us---
    geographic code: e-gx---
  subject:
    name:
      name part: Roebling, John Augustus
      name part: 1806-1869
  subject:
    topic: Civil engineers
    geographic: United States
    genre: Biography
  subject:
    topic: Civil engineers
    geographic: Germany
    genre: Biography
  subject:
    topic: Suspension bridges
    geographic: United States
    topic: History
    temporal: 19th century
  subject:
    topic: Railroad bridges
    geographic: United States
    topic: History
    temporal: 19th century
  subject:
    topic: German Americans
    genre: Biography
  subject:
    topic: Immigrants
    geographic: United States
    genre: Biography
  subject:
    geographic: Mühlhausen (Thuringia, Germany)
    genre: Biography
  classification: TA140.R7 H39 2020
  classification: 624.092
  identifier: 9780190663902
  identifier: 0190663901
  identifier: 9780190663926
  identifier: 2019026180
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 190729
    record change date: 20201020065639.0
    record identifier: in00004161180