- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
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Expanded View
Collection Overview
- Creator:
- John A. Roebling's Sons Company
- Title:
- John A. Roebling's Sons Company Records
- Repository:
- Manuscripts Division
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/s1784n122
- Dates:
- 1821-1936
- Size:
- 2 boxes, 1.4 linear feet
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (scarcpxm): Box 1-2
- Language:
- English
Abstract
The John A. Roebling's Sons Company was a family-run wire rope manufacturing business based in Trenton, New Jersey, and established in 1848 by John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869), a German-born American civil engineer best known for his wire rope suspension bridge designs, particularly the Brooklyn Bridge. The records consist of 10 bound volumes of business records, correspondence, and clippings kept by the company during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including typescript copies of John A. Roebling's professional correspondence, a company address book and manufacturing specifications catalog for wire rope, Ferdinand W. Roebling, Jr.'s business ledger, a minute book for the Roebling Construction Company, a volume of John Ferreol Monnot's patents, and a two-volume scrapbook on the German civil engineer and bridge-builder Karl Bernhard.
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Scope and Contents
The collection consists of 10 bound volumes of administrative records, financial ledgers, meeting minutes, professional correspondence, product specifications, and clippings of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company of Trenton, New Jersey. Materials include three volumes of typescript copies of John A. Roebling's professional correspondence from 1831 to 1865 with Ferdinand Baehr, Charles Swan, and others, including some translations from the German. Also present are a company address book documenting the company's business relationships and contacts in the 1890s; a 1920 company manufacturing specifications catalog for wire rope, with two related pamphlets, inscribed by Siegfried Roebling; Ferdinand W. Roebling, Jr.'s business ledger of price estimates and product specifications for various orders and projects in the early 1900s; a minute book for the Roebling Construction Company (1899-1915) with related correspondence regarding its incorporation and dissolution; a volume of Monnot and Prior U.S. Patents for Compound Conductors (1821-1914), with correspondence interleaved regarding John A. Roebling's Sons Company's potential purchase of patents for wire rope manufacture; and a two-volume scrapbook on the German civil engineer and bridge-builder Karl Bernhard, with clippings in German covering his activities from 1896 to 1934.
- Collection Creator Biography:
John A. Roebling's Sons Company
The John A. Roebling's Sons Company was a wire rope manufacturing business, established in 1848 in Trenton, New Jersey, by John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869), a German-born American civil engineer best known for his wire rope suspension bridge designs, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Niagara River Gorge Bridge. Working in Western Pennsylvania during his early career, Roebling turned his efforts toward the manufacture of strong but flexible twisted wire rope as an alternative to the unreliable hemp rope that was then being used to haul barges over railways across steep terrain as a part of the area's extensive canal system. Roebling's invention soon was being used by the Allegheny Portage Railroad, and he received a patent for his novel method of manufacturing wire ropes in 1842. Upon his death in 1869, Roebling left the company to his three sons, Washington Augustus Roebling (1837-1926), Ferdinand W. Roebling (1842-1917), and Charles G. Roebling (1849-1918), who built their father's company into the world's leading producer of wire rope, with four factories and nearly 8,000 employees at its peak. Ferdinand W. Roebling's two sons, Karl G. Roebling and Ferdinand W. Roebling, Jr., headed the company after the death of their father in 1917, followed by his grandsons, Joseph M. Roebling and Ferdinand W. Roebling III, and later Charles Roebling's grandson, Charles Roebling Tyson, who joined the company in 1937 and served as its president from 1944 until 1953, when the family sold the business to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, which operated it until 1974.
Collection History
- Acquisition:
Gift of Professor David P. Billington, 2014 .
- Appraisal
No materials were separated during 2014 processing.
- Processing Information
This collection was processed by Kelly Bolding in August, 2014. Finding aid written by Kelly Bolding in August, 2014.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
- Credit this material:
John A. Roebling's Sons Company Records; Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Permanent URL:
- http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/s1784n122
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (scarcpxm): Box 1-2
Find More
- Subject Terms:
- Bridges -- Design and construction. -- 19th century
Civil engineers -- New Jersey. -- 19th century -- Correspondence
Industrialists -- New Jersey. -- 19th century -- Correspondence
Suspension bridges -- Design and construction. -- 19th century
Wire industry -- History -- New Jersey. -- 19th century -- Sources
Wire-rope industry -- History -- New Jersey. -- 19th century -- Sources - Genre Terms:
- Address books. -- 19th century
Administrative records. -- 20th century
Correspondence -- 19th century
Ledgers (account books) -- 19th century
Minutes (administrative records). -- 20th century
Product specifications. -- 20th century
Scrapbooks -- 20th century - Names:
- John A. Roebling's Sons Company
Roebling, Ferdinand W. (Ferdinand William) (1878-1936)
Roebling, John Augustus (1806-1869) - Places:
- Trenton (N.J.) -- History. -- 19th century -- Sources
