In 1865, Emily Warren married Captain Washington Roebling, they met during the American Civil War and Wash was her older brother’s Gouverneur Kemble Warren’s aide. The couple was instantly attracted to each other, their courtship was conducted by mail and they didn’t spend a lot of time together due to the war. Wash and his father John were both engineers, they needed to finish the Covington Cincinnati Bridge construction and it had been delayed due to the Civil War and they had plans to build a much bigger bridge.
John Roebling had a dream to build a bridge called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or as it’s called today the Brooklyn Bridge. The plan was to build a suspension bridge for Brooklyn residents to use to get to work in Manhattan and not have to catch water ferries. Once funding was sorted out, Wash was to be the chief engineer, guided by his father and they would build a suspension cable stay bridge supported by two huge towers that are built on two caissons. Caissons are watertight retaining structures used to build the foundations of bridges; they are large upside wooden boxes and had false bottoms. The false bottoms were removed so men working inside them could dig away at the mud and bedrock at the bottom of the river and compressed air was pumped into the chambers to keep the river water from running in and drowning the men.
Emily became her husband’s messenger when he became ill, despite having no formal education in math, science or engineering. Emily was very smart, soon she was more involved in the building of the bridge and she walked around a construction site wearing a big dress and with her toddler son John pulling at her long skirts. Emily Roebling was a remarkable woman, she was a wife, a mother and she managed the project of building the world’s longest suspension bridge at the time.
The Engineer’s Wife uses interesting facts about building the Brooklyn Bridge, to create a story about a strong, determined woman and who didn’t follow the traditional roles expected of her. I enjoyed reading The Engineer's Wife, if you like Historical Fiction, want to read something different, I highly recommend reading it and I gave the book five stars. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Good read
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