To this day, the Brooklyn Bridge remains a monumental civil engineering feat. Connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn and extending across the East River, the bridge is a New York City icon. When finally finished in 1883, it was the first steel-wire suspension bridge ever constructed.
It is said that today over 125,000 motor vehicles cross the 130 year old bridge daily, but few know the real story and history behind this American marvel. Even fewer know who truly was in charge of overseeing its construction and completion – Emily Warren Roebling, the world’s first female field engineer.Emily was born on September 23, 1843 into an upper middle class home in Cold Springs, New York. Her father was Sylvanus Warren, a New York State assemblyman and well-respected Mason. Her mother was Phebe Lickley Warren, who had eleven children and was very much a woman of the era. From an early age, Emily was encouraged by her family to pursue her interests and education, despite this not being the norm at the time. Many of those encouragements came from her much older brother, Gouverneur Kemble Warren.
Thirteen years her senior, Gouverneur (though his family called him “GK”) made a name for himself at West Point (which was only across the river and a mere 13 miles from his hometown) where he finished second in his class in 1850. Immediately after graduating, he went to work with the Corps of Topographical Engineers and helped create, at the time, the most comprehensive and detailed map west of the Mississippi.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Warren immediately joined up with the Union Army and quickly rose through the ranks. During the Battle of Gettysburg, he became a Union hero when he and his troops were able to hold off the Confederate Army at Little Round Top. On August 8, 1863, he became known as Major General Warren.In 1858, when Emily was fifteen years old, Gouverneur enrolled and financed his favorite little sister’s secondary education at Georgetown Visitation Convent in Washington D.C. (which still exists today and is the second-oldest all-girls’ school in the country.) There, she studied history, geography, rhetoric and grammar, algebra, French, as well as more “traditional female pursuits” such as housekeeping, weaving, and piano.
Upon finishing her studies, Emily, now an educated, well-rounded woman, went back to Cold Springs to care for her ailing mother. Sylvanus had passed away during the winter of 1859 and Phebe wasn’t doing well herself health-wise. For the next several years, Emily did what most young woman her age did during this time – tended to the house. War soon broke out and GK was sent to the front, where he, as mentioned previously, rose to the occasion. In the winter of 1864, missing her brother and tired of home life, Emily convinced her family to allow her to pay GK a visit at a Virginia military camp.
She arranged her trip around the glorious Second Corps Officers’ Ball, which was to be held on February 22, 1864 under the supervision of General Warren. That evening, Emily met the man that would help lead her to her destiny, Washington Roebling, a soldier under her brother’s command and the son of John Roebling, who had already become famous due to his cable wire suspension bridges he had built in Pittsburgh, the Niagara Falls region, and Cincinnati. Washington was immediately smitten with Emily, as described in David McCullough’s fantastic book The Great Bridge,
The most prominent ladies of Washington were present from Miss Hamlin, Kate Chase, and the Misses Hale down. Last, but not least, was Miss Emily Warren, sister of the General, who came specially from West Point to attend the ball; it was the first time I ever saw her and I am very much of the opinion she has captured your brother Washy’s heart at last. It was a real attack in force.
From that point forward, they wrote constant love letters to one another, back and forth (supposedly some of those letters are still in…
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