Roebling, John Augustus

Roebling, John Augustus

(1806–69) civil engineer; born in Mühlhausen, Germany. Educated in Berlin, Roebling emigrated to the United States in 1831, settling near Pittsburgh. He worked as an engineer on several river canal projects where he pioneered the development of wire rope for barges and the machinery needed to use it. From 1844 to 1845 he built an aqueduct across the Allegheny River, the first structure ever to be supported with wire cable. This success was followed in 1846 by a wire-supported suspension bridge over the Monongahela River and in 1848 by a series of aqueducts linking the Delaware River and the Hudson canal. In 1855 he completed the Niagara railway suspension bridge. In 1867, Roebling was chosen chief engineer for a bridge across the East River to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn. While making a survey of the project, one of his feet was accidentally crushed. Despite medical attention, Roebling died of tetanus. The Brooklyn Bridge was completed by his son, Washington Augustus Roebling.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.

Roebling, John Augustus

(1806–1869)

Pioneering suspension bridge engineer who, with Washington Augustus Roebling (1837–1926), designed the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved