John A. Röbling

Born: 1806 | Died: 1869

Engineer

Johann August Röbling was a pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges and his best known bridge is New York’s Brooklyn Bridge.

Röbling was born in Mühlhausen in eastern Germany. He attended the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Berlin, graduating with a degree in Civil engineering. He also attended the lectures of Hegel. Hegel is said to have stated that Röbling was one of his best students. Together with his brother, Röbling emigrated to America in 1831, and settled with others from his hometown in a small colony in Pennsylvania, which was later called Saxonburg.

One of his first projects was improving river navigation facilities. By replacing hempen hawsers with wire cables, he developed his own method for stranding and weaving wire cables. The demand for such cable soon became so great that he established a factory to manufacture it in Trenton, N.J. This was the beginning of an industrial complex that finally was capable of producing everything from chicken wire to enormous 36-inch (91-centimetee) cables. It remained a family-owned business, carried on by three generations. The wire rope that he produced became an important part of his future bridge construction.

Röbling designed a number of bridges in America including one across the Allegheny River, the Ohio River at Cincinnati and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge was begun in 1869 and cost Röbling his life. He suffered an injury during preparatory works for the building project in 1869 and died of an infection shortly afterwards. Röbling’s son continued the bridge project but after he suffered an incapacitating illness, Röbling’s wife took over and finished the works. On May 24, 1883, after 14 years, work was completed.

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