biography
| name: |
Roebling, John Augustus
|
pronunciation:
[rohbling]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1806–69)
|
| biography:
| Civil engineer, born in Mühlhausen, C Germany. He studied at Berlin Polytechnic, emigrated to the USA in 1831, and took up work as a canal engineer. He proposed the replacement of hemp tow-ropes with wire ropes, and developed the machinery to produce the ropes, the first to be made in America. As demand increased, he turned his attention to suspension bridges, completing the first to use his wire ropes in 1846. He built the pioneer railway suspension bridge at Niagara Falls (1851–5, replaced 1897), and was supervising construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when an injury to his foot resulted in tetanus, from which he died. His son Washington Augustus Roebling (1837–1926) succeeded him as chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge project, and saw it through to completion in 1883. |
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