THE BUILDERS OF THE BRIDGE

This is the story of John Roebling and his son. So runs the sub-title, but I found the opening chapters by far the most interesting part of the biography for the average reader, for here we find a story of the making of an American. John Rbling came to manhood in Germany, son of an easy going father and an ambitious mother, who was determined that one son of his amount to something. We read something of the early education -- of how he was fired, as a boy, with an urge to build bridges -- of how he realized that in Prussian bonds he could do nothing new and so he came to America. And then we see him, leader of a farming colony -- his hopes deferred -- and once the chance for an engineering job given him, we see him becoming wholly the builder -- training his son to follow him, proving suspension bridges feasible, leaving Brooklyn Bridge literally a monument -- for it cost his life, and his son, his health.