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.

In 1955 Fritz Engineering Laboratory, originally built by John Fritz in 1909-1910, dedicated a new seven-story addition known as the new Fritz Laboratory. From that time on there was a systematic filing of research reports. Before this date the research reports in Fritz Laboratory were not designated systematically. This collection of manuscripts was produced or collected by faculty prior to 1955.