This collection contains the technical and professional documents of consulting engineer Blair Birdsall. Most of the collection are documents pertaining to the multitude of bridges he worked on, including the Golden Gate, Chesapeake Bay, and Brooklyn Bridges, as a consulting engineer or as a design engineer. The collection spans from 1900 to 2002 covering his entire career and also early Steinman Boynton Gronquist & Birdsall and John A. Roebling Sons Engineering companies.
Abstract
The collection of photographs illustrate various types of civil engineering works including the Whipple through truss railroad bridge, Pennsylvania through truss bridge, suspension bridges, cantilever bridges, reinforced concrete arch bridges and buttress dams. Among the bridge photographs are included the Brooklyn Bridge, the Firth of Forth Bridge, the Tay Bridge and Niagara Falls “Honeymoon” Bridge collapses, the Pecos River railroad trestle bridge and the “Luten Design” reinforced...
Dates:
1879-1984; Majority of material found within 1879-1984
28 black & white photographs documenting the destruction of the old one and construction of the new bridge over 9th Street in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1925 to 1926.
A collection of ephemera of a Lehigh alumnus, Rollin Reuben Keim, concerning his personal interests, his career as a City of Bethlehem businessman and contributions to his Lehigh Class as Class correspondent for Lehigh Alumni Bulletin. Major portion of the collection is data and visual material related to the Hill-to-Hill Bridge, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Dates:
1792-1923, 1969; Majority of material found within 1792-1923, 1969
Abstract
This scrapbook is an interesting contrast of nineteenth
century ephemera – albumen photographs and chromolithographic trade cards and calling/visiting cards. The
photographs present the metal truss design of bridges built by the King Iron Bridge Company in various places
in the 1880s. The trade cards promoting patent medicines and perfume and the calling cards display the
beautiful art of the chromolithograph printing process. The scrapbook seems to represent a popular Victorian
Era...
Abstract
The album contains a collection of photographs of six Pennsylvania bridges and several railroad works possibly inspected by G. W. Philips in a period from 1900 to 1930. Perhaps the most well-known Pennsylvania bridge is the multi concrete arch Hyner Bridge over the Susquehanna River near Renovo, Pennsylvania. The Hell Gate Bridge over the East River in New York City is an anomaly among the construction photographs in the album as the only New York bridge. The album is an interesting...
Dates:
1900-1930; Majority of material found within 1900-1930
Album contains small black and white photographs many of the siting and building of the Hill-to-Hill Bridge over the Lehigh River connecting the two Bethlehems in Pennsylvania. Also in the album are photographs of young men in graduation gowns, college dorm life and young people cavorting in outdoor activities.
Abstract
John Reid, the acknowledged photographer of this picture, was in his lifetime known as a pioneer photographer of the “Iron Horse” (steam locomotives). He introduced the convention of taking the photographs “from a position just ahead of the smoke box” in the late 1850s. This angle is apparent in this photograph as the 4-4-0 steam locomotive positioned on the Harlem Bridge. The bridge is an example of a Post box-truss type developed by Simeon S. Post in 1863. Based on information printed...
Photographs and blueprints of highway bridges built in the 1920s as part of the State of Washington’s Public Works Department post World War I building program. Also some photographs of bridges built in California, apparently designed by Charles Andrew who was bridge engineer for California State Highway Department as well as Washington State Highway Department and Oregon.
Abstract
Documents and photographs related to Lehigh University Civil Engineering faculty William J. Eney's early teaching years (1930s) at civil engineering summer camps (Canadensis, Pa.) including his lecture documents on bridge engineering, his own invention of testing equipment, correspondence between Smithsonian Institution and Lehigh University about Eney Deformeter, photographs and documents about construction of Fritz Engineering Laboratory addition and Baldwin Universal Testing Machine...
