John Augustus Roebling
The Brooklyn Bridge’s creator, John Augustus Roebling, , was a pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges. Born in Germany in 1806, he studied industrial engineering in Berlin and at the age of 25 moved to Pennsylvania, where he attempted to make his living as a farmer. Since he was not successful being a farmer, he moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he worked as a civil engineer. He made a successful wire-cable factory. Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension bridges, which were used often, but known to fail under strong winds or heavy loads. John is credited with a major breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology which was using a web truss added to either side of the bridge roadway that helped make the structure more stable. Using this model, John successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1867, with these achievements, New York legislators approved John’s plan for a suspension bridge over the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. It would be the very first steel suspension bridge and would have the longest span in the world: 1,595 feet from tower to tower. Just before construction began in 1869, John was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer.
Washington A. Roebling and emily roebling
Washington had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge. To achieve a solid foundation for the bridge, workers excavated the riverbed in massive wooden boxes called caissons. These airtight chambers were pinned to the river’s floor by huge granite blocks. Pressurized air was pumped in to keep water and debris out. Workers known as “sandhogs”—many of them people who came from other countries, made about $2 a day. They used shovels and dynamite to clear away the mud and boulders at the bottom of the river. When they reached a good depth (44 feet on the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the Manhattan side), they began laying granite, working their way back up to the surface. Underwater, the workers in the caisson were uncomfortable since the hot, dense air gave them blinding headaches, itchy skin, bloody noses and slowed heartbeats. The journey to and back from the depths of the East River could be deadly. To get down into the caissons (timber watertight chambers), the sandhogs rode in small iron containers called airlocks. As the airlock went deeper into the river, it filled with compressed air. This air made it possible to breathe in the caisson and kept the water from seeping in, but it also put a dangerous amount of gas into the workers’ bloodstreams. When the workers came back to the surface, the gases in their blood were quickly released. This often caused many painful symptoms known as “caisson disease” or “the bends”. It created excruciating joint pain, paralysis, convulsions, numbness, speech impediments and, in some cases, death. More than 100 workers suffered from the disease, including Washington Roebling himself, who remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He was forced to watch with a telescope while his wife Emily took charge of the bridge’s construction. She had studied mathematics, materials strength, bridge specifications, and cable construction, and spent the next 11 years assisting her husband on the bridge’s construction.