Hanging by a thread
Libraries' Roebling collection tells inventive family's story
Archived article from Feb 15, 2002
By Patricia Lamiell
When John A. Roebling first proposed suspending bridges from narrow strands of wire rope, the idea was dismissed by many as aesthetically interesting but hardly practical. The German-born engineer, however, soon proved these doubters spectacularly wrong. During the 19th century, he designed and built significant wire suspension bridges across America, including one of the most technologically exciting and majestic bridges in the world, the Brooklyn Bridge.
Wire rope also led to the development of cable and mining cars and, eventually, the elevators that made the construction of skyscrapers possible and changed forever the urban landscape.
John Roebling's invention launched four generations of an inventive and entrepreneurial family, whose homestead and factory were in Trenton, as prominent players in the worldwide industrial revolution and in the economic and political life of New Jersey.
Rutgers University Libraries' Special Collections and University Archives unit began collecting the Roebling family papers in 1958, mostly through donations, according to Ronald L. Becker, director of special collections. The archive includes letters and diaries, oversized maps, architectural drawings, and the ledgers and financial documents of the John A. Roebling's Sons Co., which manufactured wire rope. Together, these documents tell a compelling story.
The chronicle begins with John A. Roebling's 1831 journey from Mulhausen, Germany, to Pittsburgh, and his early engineering designs. It continues with his son Col. Washington A. Roebling's exploits during the Civil War and with Emily Warren Roebling's path-breaking work assisting the Brooklyn Bridge construction after Washington fell ill. Financial papers document the founding, growth and eventual sale of the wire rope company, which was run by Washington's brothers Charles and Ferdinand.
The libraries have also acquired and cataloged the more recent papers of Mary Roebling, wife of John A. Roebling's great-grandson Siegfried. Mary, a banker, was named the first female governor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1958.
The Roebling Collection is one of Rutgers' largest, most significant and heavily used. Ken Burns consulted it for his documentary "The Brooklyn Bridge," and it was tapped for a Discovery Channel film on the same topic. "Anybody researching Roebling would find us," says Albert C. King, the libraries' curator of manuscripts.
To conserve these often fragile documents, the library is beginning restoration work under a $73,000 federal grant from the "Save America's Treasures" program. The conservation efforts, directed by King, will commence in April and take about a year.
To begin, conservator Kristen St. John will enclose the bound records, ledgers and journals in individual, custom-made, acid-free boxes to protect leather bindings from handling, light and dust.
The Civil War maps drawn by Washington Roebling present a special problem, St. John says. The maps are oversized and heavily damaged, and they have been rolled up for decades. The maps will be sent to the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, where they will be washed in large sinks or flat trays containing a special alkaline solution to clean them and neutralize deteriorating acid.
Nineteenth-century paper also needs special handling. At that time, papermakers were beginning to replace cotton and linen rag pulps with more plentiful wood pulps, which acidify and break down faster. They also began adding other harmful ingredients to paper pulp like alum rosin sizes. Sizes make it possible to write on paper without having inks feather and bleed, but alum rosin sizes speed paper deterioration.
In addition, 19th-century inks "can be pretty treacherous," St. John points out. The iron gall ink commonly used at the time was made from tannins found in crushed oak galls (a fungus that grows on oak bark), iron sulfate, gum arabic and water. The combination of the tannins in the oak galls and the iron sulfate can corrode paper, and the ink may fade or bleed if washed.
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