Item #5159 Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis
Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis

Engineering Notebook and Diary of an R.P.I. Graduate, Including a Journal of His Time Working on the Eads Bridge Across the Mississippi River at St. Louis

Various Places: 1869-1871. Quarter morocco binding with marbled boards measuring 13.5 x 8.5", containing 127 pages of class notes and 19pp of diary entries. The book belonged to Joseph Tatnal Baily of Paterson, New Jersey, a civil engineer who graduated in 1870 from Rochester Polytechnic Institue. The bulk of the text is dedicated to his R.P.I. class notes on surveying, electricity, building a girder bridge, steam locomotives and more. Laid in are 20pp of handwritten essays on locomotive boilers, written for a Professor named William Healey. The essays and notes are illustrated by several pen and ink drawings.

The back of the book contains 19pp of diary entries by Bailey describing his time working on the Eads bridge in St. Louis in 1870 and 1871. Designed by James Buchanan Eads, a world-renowned American civil engineer and inventor who was the first bridge builder to employ the cantilever method, the bridge was the first road and rail bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, the first bridge of significant size built out of steel, and the largest arch bridge in the world when completed. Baily describes his work tracing designs, preparing a railroad map of East St. Louis, and helping prepare Eads' report on the bridge. At one point Baily mentions that he wrote "85 pages" of Eads report, which was possibly one of several reports published under the title "Report of the Chief Engineer". He also describes several encounters and conversations he had with Eads, including their first meeting, after which he kicks himself for not taking the opportunity to spend more time with Eads. Once the job starts, Baily spends his time tracing in the company of a group of German engineers, dull work which he complains about with frequency. In 1871, Baily travels to Pittsburgh to work as assistant inspector of the steel being manufactured for the bridge, and the account ends with his thoughts upon arriving in the city. "A History of the St. Louis Bridge," published in 1881, contains many mentions of Baily in the context of his work testing the strength of the steel in Pittsburgh. Overall in very good condition, wear to covers, lower portion of front joint split, lower inch of spine covering chipped, ink faded in places but still legible. Some excerpts follow:

"I never acted more like a jackass in my life than when I told Eads, that I had something to do today for evidently it was his intention to take me around the place and show me things where I would have had a good opportunity to learn his manner and ingratiate myself..."

"Have been tracing today the same as yesterday and expect to trace for some time to come. I begin to feel that that drawing room with its half dozen Germans is no place for me. I hear nothing but Dutch Dutch all day long...Been tracing today of course as heretofore. No light, no change and on the contrary considerable darkness. If seems that I have come 1200 miles to be errand boy to a civil engineer."

"This morning I went over to East St. Louis to see about the Railroads coming in there of which I am making a map...I went over the ground of all the RRs except the Decatur, a road recently constructed, of which I have no drawings as yet...There will I think hve to be some surveys made to make the map complete."

"This week has been mostly spent in looking after Capt Eads Report. Although this is not engineers work I must admit that I have learned some things that I think will stimulate me to learn more and will benefit me in the future."

"It makes me think we are blind very blind. When I look back now and survey the course I have gone through on the Bridge I must congess that, for the attainments I had, Capt. Eads and the rest have treated me with a consideratin which at this time I failed to appreciate. So it is always."

"I am acting as assistant Inspector of the Bridge at Pittsburgh and have reason to believe that I stant better in the estimation of Capt Eads than I did one year ago today--However I have not done or accomplisged as much as I could have if I had exerted myself more...I am sorry that I cannot record a fair progress toward the completion of the Bridge--The steel has delayed us--and is yet delaying us." Item #5159

Price: $1,250.00

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