The Brooklyn Bridge
is considered a historical monumental engineering project unlike anything built
before. This bridge, spanning across the East River from
New York to Brooklyn,
was designed by John Roebling in 1869. Roebling’s daughter-in-law, Emily Warren
Roebling, became in involved when her husband, Washington, took over after his
father passed away.
Emily Roebling didn’t want to be a passive assistant. While
most women would have balked at engineering studies, Emily dove into unlikely
topics such as mathematics, material strengths, stress analysis and cable
construction. Little did she know how valuable those classes would be. Just a
few years later her husband became seriously ill, leaving him nearly paralyzed.
The bridge construction fell on Emily.
Mrs. Roebling stepped right in. So perfectly, that many
thought she was the Chief Engineer. Seems to me she was, even though the title
was never officially bestowed upon her.
While becoming an engineer had not been part of Emily
Roebling’s life plan, she became one, overseeing the completion of one of the
finest examples of engineering for its time.
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