LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Brooklyn Bridge: John Roebling
built 203 days ago
The Brooklyn Bridge's 486-meter main span was the longest in the world until the completion of the Firth of Forth cantilever bridge in Scotland in 1890. Its deck, supported by four cables, carries both automobile and pedestrian traffic. A distinctive feature is the broad promenade above the roadway, which John Roebling accurately predicted "in a crowded commercial city will be of incalculable value."
Source:
Building the Brooklyn Bridge not only required designing the bridge, but ... inventing key materials, their means of manufacture and the means to put them in place. In the 1840's John Roebling started America's first wire rope manufacturing company. This got him involved in engineering projects that involved the use of his wire rope and eventually in the design of suspension bridges.
Source:
Discover how the Roebling family built the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the great marvels of the nineteenth century. Learn about John Augustus Roebling, the father who envisioned the bridge; Washington Augustus Roebling, the son, who began the project; and Washington's wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who helped him complete it.
Source:
John Roebling introduced the use of steel, rather than iron, for the four main support cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. Up till then steel had been used for construction of railroads but it had not yet been used for structures such as bridges.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
John Roebling