Completed in 1874, the steel-and-masonry bridge that James Eads designed to span the Mississippi River at Saint Louis was immediately celebrated as one of the great engineering achievements of the nineteenth century. The bridge became an important symbol of the increasing industrial prowess of the United States, while also serving as a metaphor for the knitting together of the eastern and western halves of the nation. Since the Renaissance, there had been a tradition of celebrating (and advertising) technological achievements with lavish commemorative publications. Nineteenth-century engineers embraced that that tradition with enthusiasm, often employing new technology in the books themselves. This grand publication, by Calvin Woodward, dean of the engineering school at Washington University, is illustrated with an extensive series of moody and dramatic photomechanical reproductions of photographs. It is among the earliest American books to use phtography so extensively to record an engineering achievement.

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