Philadelphia: Printed for Private Circulation by J.B. Lippincott Company, 1903.
Price: $350.00
Hardcover. First edition. Thick small quarto. 561pp., gravure frontispiece, folding map, 34 plates and portraits. Leaves are mostly unopened. Brown cloth gilt. A trifle rubbed at the edges, some scuffing on the spine, but otherwise a near fine copy. Copy number 140 of 300 copies privately printed. Laid in is a printed slip sending the book with the compliments of Emily Roebling.
An extensive volume of genealogy of the Warren family, an early history of Westchester County, as well as an account of a controversy during the Civil War concerning a member of the Warren family, as well as an account of the Civil War Battle of Five Forks involving Generals Grant and Sheridan, detailing Emily's brother Major-General Gouverneur K. Warren's disputed leadership in the battle.
A few years after the end of the Civil War, Emily's husband Washington A. Roebling became the "Chief Engineer" in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge after the 1869 death of his father John Roebling, who had designed the Bridge (and died as the result of an accident connected to the Bridge). Early in construction Washington himself was badly debilitated with decompression disease as a result of his work and was consigned to his bed.
It fell upon Emily Roebling to convey her husband's orders and to oversee the day-to-day construction of the Bridge. Emily's previous interest in bridge construction stood her in good stead and she served for over a decade as a full partner to her husband in the design solutions and innovations in the construction of the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge and the longest suspension bridge of any sort. Less well-known was how she managed to control the scheming of corrupt politicians and crooked contractors attempting to profit from the construction. Emily's part in the realization of the Brooklyn Bridge, which has to some degree been acknowledged, was nervertheless constantly underestimated. Described by one biographer as a woman of "strong character" with an "almost masculine intellect," in later life, Emily earned a law degree, arguing in an Albany law journal article for equality in marriage, and further devoted herself to women's causes.
Item #438297
