Emily Roebling

Summary

Podcast Summary: The History Chicks – Emily Roebling

Introduction and Historical Context

The History Chicks delves into the remarkable life of Emily Warren Roebling, a pivotal figure in American engineering history. Set against the backdrop of the late 19th century, the episode explores Emily's journey from her early life in Cold Spring, New York, to her instrumental role in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Early Life and Education

Emily Warren was born on September 23, 1843, in Cold Spring, New York, as the fifth of six surviving children in a family with deep historical roots, including a Warren ancestor from the Mayflower. Her father, Captain Sylvanus Warren, was a prominent state assemblyman and town forefather, while her mother's lineage traced back to Revolutionary War patriots.

Becky (02:17): "Emily Warren was born on September 23, 1843... Six of Emily's siblings had died before she was even born."

Emily's upbringing emphasized education and physical prowess. By age fifteen, she was sent to Georgetown Visitation Convent School in Washington D.C., where she received a comprehensive education covering subjects like chemistry, botany, and engineering, alongside traditional female pursuits such as sewing and music.

Susan (08:36): "She had studied music, she learned to play the piano. And I found this so curious..."

Marriage to Washington Roebling

In 1864, Emily met Washington Roebling at a military ball hosted by her brother, Gouverneur K. Warren, a Union Army general during the Civil War. Their courtship was swift, culminating in marriage on January 18, 1865.

Becky (18:08): "In that first 24 hours, 150,000 people crossed over the East River Bridge."

Construction was already underway on the Brooklyn Bridge, following the tragic death of Washington's father, John A. Roebling, during the project. Washington took over as chief engineer but soon suffered additional health complications, including tetanus, limiting his ability to oversee the project physically.

The Brooklyn Bridge Project

The Brooklyn Bridge, envisioned to connect New York and Brooklyn across the East River, was a monumental engineering feat of its time. John A. Roebling began its construction, but his untimely death from tetanus necessitated Washington's leadership. Washington's declining health due to caisson disease (then called "caisson sickness") gradually incapacitated him, leading Emily to assume a more active role in the bridge's completion.

Becky (50:15): "At this time of year we understand the tortures that we put our hair through."

Washington's Illness and Emily's Ascension to Leadership

As Washington's health deteriorated, Emily became the de facto chief engineer. She navigated the complexities of bridge construction, including engineering challenges, labor issues, and public relations, all while managing her husband's care and raising their son.

Becky (68:33): "Emily Washington Roebling assumed the duties of chief engineer, representing her husband in all official capacities."

Emily's coordination and technical acumen were crucial in overcoming obstacles, such as disputes over cable quality and sabotage from rival engineers like James Walker. Her ability to communicate effectively with workers, negotiate with suppliers, and present technical information to stakeholders ensured the project's progress despite adversity.

Challenges Faced

Emily faced numerous challenges, including societal expectations of women, personal health issues, and the immense pressure of completing one of the era's most ambitious infrastructure projects. Her perseverance in a male-dominated field exemplifies her strength and determination.

Emily (as quoted by Susan, 68:58): "In the pictures of the master workman directing from his bed of pain... I must utter what this moment half articulates upon all of your lips the name of Mrs. Washington Roebling."

Completion and Legacy

After thirteen years of construction, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed and dedicated on May 24, 1883. Emily was the first to drive a carriage across the bridge, symbolizing her integral role in its creation. The bridge stood as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time and remains an iconic landmark today.

Susan (74:50): "The builders of the bridge, dedicated to the memory of Emily Warren Roebling... her faith and courage helped her stricken husband... in the vigor of health."

Emily's legacy extends beyond the bridge itself. She became a respected figure in engineering circles, joined various women's organizations, and contributed to societal advancements through her advocacy and organizational work.

Post-Bridge Life and Recognition

Following the bridge's completion, Emily continued to influence engineering and women's roles in society. She participated in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, was recognized internationally, and authored works showcasing her contributions. Despite her pivotal role, Emily often remained behind the scenes, ensuring that her husband's and father's legacies were honored.

Becky (117:38): "Emily Roebling was both a woman of her time and completely outside it... Her audacity and abilities transcended what society considered proper."

In 1951, a new plaque on the Brooklyn Bridge officially recognized Emily's contributions, ensuring her rightful place in history. Streets and schools have been named in her honor, solidifying her impact on both engineering and women's history.

Notable Quotes

• Becky (02:17): "Emily Warren was born on September 23, 1843... Six of Emily's siblings had died before she was even born."
• Susan (08:36): "She had studied music, she learned to play the piano. And I found this so curious..."
• Becky (68:33): "Emily Washington Roebling assumed the duties of chief engineer, representing her husband in all official capacities."
• Susan (74:50): "The builders of the bridge, dedicated to the memory of Emily Warren Roebling... her faith and courage helped her stricken husband..."

Conclusion

Emily Roebling's story is one of resilience, intelligence, and unwavering dedication. Her significant yet often underappreciated role in constructing the Brooklyn Bridge highlights the essential contributions women have made throughout history, even when societal norms sought to limit their involvement. The History Chicks episode serves as a tribute to Emily's enduring legacy and encourages a deeper appreciation of her achievements.

Transcript

[Susan]

Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

[Becky]

And here's your 32nd summary.

[Susan]

Thank you. Thank you all for coming to celebrate the completion of my greatest achievement to date. New York and Brooklyn are now connected.

[Becky]

By the longest suspension bridge in the world. The last 14 years have been fraught with challenges. And there were times I thought I might not overcome. But overcome I did. By Jove. And by myself actually.

[Susan]

Maybe a little bit sometimes. But not much is my project from start to finish.

[Becky]

Gentlemen, I give you the East River Bridge. And that is not quite how things went down at all. The end. Let's talk about Emily Warren Roebling.

[Susan]

But first, let's drop her into history. In 1883, Lewis Waterman saw a flaw in the ink pen design and began to invent a better option, the fountain pen, which was patented. The following year, the United States very first vaudeville theater opened In Boston, Massachusetts. The International Colonial and Export Exhibition, otherwise known as the Amsterdam World's Fair, was held. The first of over 2,500 Carnegie libraries throughout the world, opened in Andrew Carnegie's birthplace of Dunfermline, Scotland. The very first mail shoot was installed in the Elwood Building in Rochester, New York. And the very first run of the Express doyent Orient Express left Paris for Constantinople. The first edition of Treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson was published. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Rube Goldberg and Gabrielle Coco Chanel were all born. Lydia Pinkham and Sojourner Truth both died. And in 1883, Emily Roebling crossed a bridge into history.

[Becky]

Emily Warren was born on September 23, 1843 in Cold Spring, New York, the 11th of the 12th 12 children of Captain Sylvanus Warren and Phoebe Lickley Warren. But I think it's important to note she's only the fifth of the sixth surviving children. Six of Emily's siblings had died before she was even born. You know what? I'll never get over that.

[Susan]

I know. You know what? I hope we don't. Because that will mean that we're desensitized to it. Yeah.

[Becky]

Well, there had been a Warren on the Mayflower. That's about as og as you can get in the United States of America. Of course, they were here before it was the United States of America. By now, Papa Silvanus was a state assemblyman and a town forefather. He was a big deal.

[Susan]

Papa's family was fairly wealthy. They were of the class within their town where all political offices were pulled from, if that makes any sense. And on her mother's side, her mother's great grandfather had fought in the Revolutionary War under Sybil Ludington's father. I know. Wow. Let's bring it all together. I love it when that happens.

[Becky]

Also, her family had come over from Scotland, and their name there had probably been likely or lightly, and they had been tenant farmers on the Van Cortlandt Manor, which is a national historic landmark that you can visit even today. It was land that had been given to the Van Cortlandts by King William III of England. It was a royal land grant.

[Susan]

Nice. Both of Emily's parents had grown up in the same county where Emily and all of her siblings were born and raised in upstate New York. The town's called Cold Spring.

[Becky]

So the shape of Emily's family growing up was two brothers that were a lot older than she was then, one sister right in the middle, and then three little ones very close to each other. Seven years between each of those little clumps of siblings. The eldest brothers had, in fact, largely left daily life at home by the time Emily was aware of them. That same thing happened to my mom, as a matter of fact. Her brothers, very close in age, were significantly older than she, and she really didn't grow up in the same house with them. There's family love, but, you know, not the daily struggles of siblingness.

[Susan]

Yeah. The oldest surviving Warren sibling was named Gouverneur kemble, shortened to GK, which is so much easier to say. He was 13 years older than Emily and would have headed off for his own education when his little sister was just three. He went to the U.S. military Academy at West Point, which really isn't that far from where the family was living. But he, of course, had to stay there while he went to school. Somehow they managed to stay close.

[Becky]

We are, unfortunately, a little vague on Emily's years 0 through 15. Her family seems to have placed a very high value on education, though, and on physical activity. As a child, Emily was a noted horsewoman, and as she got older, was strong enough to drive carriages. Do you remember how shocking it was for Laura Ingalls to have driven Almanzo's horses? It was not just Victorian modesty. It was genuine fear that she was not strong enough to control those beasts. Emily was considered strong enough physically to drive carriages. It was a big deal. And I had thought at one point, was that where that whole, like, women drivers thing came from? Oh, but I remember when I once tried to drive a Studebaker. I think I might have told this story before. Like, I'm not very big, and cars didn't used to have assisted steering or brakes. I functionally had to stand up on that thing with all of my might to get it to slow down enough not to give me a heart attack. So I think that's where.

[Susan]

That's why it may have been a little herky jerky.

[Becky]

Well, anyway, she got a genuine good academic base. Whether the household had tutors and governesses or they had gone out to school because of something we know that happened right now. As Papa's health began to fail and then Papa died, her oldest brother, GK from his established military career, stepped up as head of the house.

[Susan]

He had graduated from West Point and went out in the field, was at this point teaching math as well as going out occasionally and working with topographical engineers surveying land. So he has a great military career. But he said, if I were to have a choice of ways to spend my money, I would rather, for my own gratification, devoted to advancing my brothers and sisters. He really stepped up into those shoes of his father in a pretty big way. And funded their educations. Emily, at 15, was sent to Georgetown Visitation Covenant School in Washington D.C. it's an all girls boarding school. It actually still is an all girls school. Go Cubs.

[Becky]

She studied algebra, geometry, geology, chemistry, botany, history, grammar, composition, oration and French, as well as the expected household management, painting, sewing, needlework and music. I will say, during the time she was there, the Georgetown Visitation Convent school had a staff of enslaved people, which would be true until the middle of the Civil War in 1862. April of that year was the first point at which Washington, D.C. outlawed slavery within its borders. And in fact, the drive, which is decades old to eliminate the slavery in Washington D.C. was one of the keys that kind of polarized the country about the issue of slavery in the first place, ahead of the Civil War. Because all the people advocating for states rights had no leg to stand on in Washington, D.C. because guess what? It wasn't a state.

[Susan]

Right.

[Becky]

So there had to be some fundamental questions answered that were a little more uncomfortable in Washington, D.C. you said that.

[Susan]

She had studied music, she learned to play the piano. And I found this so curious. She also played the guitar. So I'm just imagining Emily, you know, getting rounded out educationally and learning, you know, how to be a woman in polite society, but also playing the guitar and riding the horse. That's the image I have in my head, and I kind of love it a lot.

[Becky]

I'm actually having a vague recollection of one of the original Consuelos playing, but it might have Been the ukulele. Remember? She was kind of like. She used to stand on a table and play the ukulele, wasn't it? I don't know. Maybe it was the guitar.

[Susan]

I don't know. I know. Oh, I. Yeah, I have a vague. That was. That was a couple years ago though, Becky. And reading about the classes that she took, I ran across this one that was kind of new to me. It's called Profane History. And at first I was like, oh, really? You know, I was kind of excited, but I was a little disappointed to learn that it just meant non religious history. So yay, great, they're teaching outside of the Bible. But Susan of 2024 was a little disappointed. Profane History wasn't something cooler.

[Becky]

She actually quit her religious class. It was optional and she took that option.

[Susan]

Yep. More time to learn the guitar. She was really into the sciences, though. I mean, meteorology, botany. You said chemistry. I mean, all that.

[Becky]

Amelie was considered by most of the family the brightest one of all in the whole ket and caboodle of them. So I'm glad that somebody decided not to waste her talents.

[Susan]

Yeah. Or send her to a more traditional school. Even though this one was run by nuns. But it certainly wasn't a traditional curriculum that a young lady at a finishing school would be getting.

[Becky]

I keep thinking that nuns throughout history were some of the most learned women anyway. Oh, without all of that distraction.

[Susan]

Yeah, no, I don't disagree with that at all. The only thing about that is that they take a vow of poverty, yet they enslaved people and they sold them for profit to run the school. I don't know how that mental gymnastics works out. You know what I mean?

[Becky]

Whole thesis have been written on that little dance between Christianity and slavery and the justifications which seem to be mental gymnastics. Just like you said. We would like to leave Emily at school for a minute with her extreme course load and popularity and go back in time for a quick parallel storyline. That of her eventual husband Grandpa John Roebling immigrated from Prussia to Pennsylvania. He had his eyes open in his mind, attuned to the future. He founded a town and began farming.

[Susan]

So he comes here, he's building this utopian village. He's got it all planned out, the plans are going great, and then it comes time to actually work the village and work as a farmer. And he just not only fails, but failed miserably. And his brother, who had started this village with him, died of heat stroke out in the fields. So John just made this major life pivot. He changed his name From Johan to John became a U.S. citizen. And he went back to the thing he did well, engineering.

[Becky]

He began building suspension bridges and aqueducts. His fame grew and grew until he became the guy all letters capitalized in the United States and increasingly across the world that you would call for any bridge building needs that you had. He was a natural genius, just a natural master of physics. One of those people for whom it came absolutely like drinking water. He noted industry's use of hemp rope, which failed more often than was comfortable or more importantly for business profitable, and founded a wire company to make what he called wire rope, but we would call cable. Steel cable, in fact. And he began to print money. The company he built was called J. Roebling and Sons. As five of his seven children were boys, chances are a few of them would not be able to escape from him and would run the company with him in the future. Grandpa was direct and imperious and I say, prone to pop off at anyone he thought was stupider than him. But since everyone is stupider than him, he was in a constant state of anger.

[Susan]

That's just what I'd say.

[Becky]

You know what? I sympathize. But he needed to get under control.

[Susan]

Later in his life, his son wrote this about John, quote, his domestic life can be summed up in a few words. Domineering tyranny only varied by outbursts of uncontrolled ferocity. His wife and children stood in constant fear of him and trembled in his presence.

[Becky]

I don't think that's good.

[Susan]

No, I don't think it's good either. He's a strong personality, that's for sure. And his poor wife, she barely spoke English. She was from the same town that he was from in Prussia, and she was just a domestic stay at home kind of person. And then she's got this husband who's not home an awful lot, and when he is, he just takes control of everything.

[Becky]

There was never a doubt in Grandpa's mind that his eldest son was going to follow him into the business. All the businesses, ideally the bridge part of the business, which was in fact the grand, elegant face of the company. So through tutoring and a quality private school and a heavy, almost overwhelming course load at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he studied, oh, such light subjects as analytical geometry, mineralogy, geology, structural engineering, drawing and construction techniques. I mean, dang, if his son, Washington is his name, had ever wanted a different life, forget it. Yeah, he had to really work at this in a way. His father hadn't really study to get his straight A's. And he came out of his intensive education with an engineering degree and went straight to work with his papa both at the wire mill and on bridge construction sites. All non military infrastructure projects ceased, of course, with the advent of the Civil War. And Washington served in an engineering and reconnaissance unit. So his job was build bridges for troop deployments and destroy other bridges to prevent enemy movement. He was one of the very first to use hot air balloons to check enemy positions. I'm trying to picture this. It seems like they might see you.

[Susan]

Yeah, maybe the weapons couldn't go that far. Like the bullets or the muskets. I don't even know.

[Becky]

It's kind of a double edged advantage, isn't it? Because not only do you see them, but they now know approximately where at least one of you is.

[Susan]

Right?

[Becky]

And a big cumbersome thing they have to pack up and fold away. So you've got some time. Anyway. There you go. That was kind of a new. Using new technology as well as facing enemy fire, which is the reason, of course, they were all there in the first place.

[Susan]

And the enemy fire that he received was at some of the biggest battles in the Civil War. Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg.

[Becky]

That's a big one.

[Susan]

Yeah. Both Washington and GK were both at Gettysburg.

[Becky]

Did they hear the address? No details.

[Susan]

Oh, I hope so. You know those pictures of him giving it and there's all the soldiers standing around. I hope they were in there. And even though he was no longer back at John Roebling and Son, Papa John would not let the next oldest boy enroll in the army. He needed him at the wire mill, which was good because they ended up getting some Navy contracts, which again brought in even more money. But the wire rope, the cables, I mean, you need those for ships to make the rigging. So every single naval ship that went out had this wire, rope, cables on it. It's like everybody's stepping up to do their job, but this kid, you can't. I'm sorry. You're staying home. It's your turn. Step up.

[Becky]

So, bro, Ferdinand was, we call it, safe at home. He was with Papa at home. I don't know how safe that. But you know, the Civil War was one of the deadliest conflicts in history. One out of six guys didn't make it back for whatever reason. But while he was out in the field, who was Washington Roebling's boss? None other than Emily's oldest brother, G.K.

[Susan]

When Emily was 19, in 1864, G.K. warren, or General Warren, as we should probably call him G.K. invited his sister to come to a military ball thrown in his honor. Emily was now finished and living back at home. An intelligent woman who had very little to do. She was very exciting. She was charming and witty and down to earth. And as one gentleman at the ball described her, with a slightly pug nose, lovely mouth and teeth, and a most entertaining talker. And that gentleman was R. Washington roebling.

[Becky]

There were 150 ladies in attendance at this ball, but Washington had eyes for only one of them. He also described her as a hazel eyed lady with beautiful curls of medium size with a lovely complexion. I mean, I'm cracking up about the mouth and teeth, et cetera. But, you know, how would you describe someone?

[Susan]

Right. I think it's interesting. Where we're getting these quotes from are letters that he was writing his sister. One of the things he wrote to her in a letter, he said, I'm very much of the opinion that she captured your brother Washy's heart.

[Becky]

Oh, I love it.

[Susan]

I know, like right from the beginning.

[Becky]

You know what? Her intelligence and common sense also captivated him. It wasn't just her visage, it was her mind.

[Susan]

Yep. Emily and Washington began a correspondence immediately. You know, Washington went back out to work. Emily went back up to Cold Spring. But these letters are flying back and forth. Unfortunately, the only letters that survived are his because he destroyed all of hers. He said something along the lines of, it makes me sad to know that we're not together or something. But he was also on the move. He was a military guy. Where is he going to store all these letters? I kind of understand that.

[Becky]

There was one historian that I read that said he had destroyed them at her request as they were very saucy.

[Susan]

Yeah, I read that too.

[Becky]

He and his soldier friends had found a book of questionable virtue while searching a house. And they 100% stole it and kept reading it for its prurient interest. Anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about that. So I think there was a little more education going than, you know, just the convent.

[Susan]

Oh, for sure. That book was actually like a how to be married book. Which I guess when you look at the COVID Oh, that sounds like useful information. And then open it and.

[Becky]

Yeah, and then you hold it by the spine and opens to that one page. It's like right within days, honestly, he was writing. I had often laughed at other people who said they'd been in love. It was a real attack in force. When I saw her coming without any warning. And the attack was successful. I Have succumbed. And within months after a courtship, primarily carried on through letters, though I assure you, anytime they could be together, they were stuck like glue. Together, they became engaged. He gave her a diamond ring, and he told his parents right away. And the whole family regarded this with great enthusiasm. Even Papa said, you may have a job with this company to support you and your new wife, and you can live here in the family home. Or if that is unacceptable to you, I will build you a home on a neighboring property. So he couldn't have been more supportive with his son, step into grown manhood. But, you know, guess what? Guess who Washington was so nervous to tell his boss. Yeah, can you, Emily, can you show your brother's wife your diamond? And, like, maybe she'll write to her husband about it? To which I say.

[Susan]

Well, you know, it's his boss, right? And Washington knows the kind of things that he's writing to Emily. That courtship lasted six weeks before she had a diamond ring on her finger, and he was writing her things like, dearest Emmy, pray tell me, what is love? Is it kissing each other? Is it tickling, hugging, et cetera, one another? Is it writing Billy Ducks's kicking each other's shins under the table? That must be it. I think it's the shins. A Billy Ducks is a love letter.

[Becky]

It's a billet doux.

[Susan]

No, he wrote it. Billy Ducks's. I understand.

[Becky]

D, O, U, X.

[Susan]

He wrote it B, I, L, L, Y, D, U, X, E, S. Two separate words.

[Becky]

Funny. Okay. So he had no idea how to pronounce it. That's actually Billy Dew. Yeah. Okay. It just means sweet letter. Sweet.

[Susan]

Right, Right.

[Becky]

Okay. That's funny. Okay. Because I was like, susan, Susan, you.

[Susan]

Know better than that. How far did you get in your French lessons?

[Becky]

Oh, you know, that is one thing Duolingo does not cover. No historical references to love letters. Somehow. No.

[Susan]

Even Rosetta Stone doesn't teach you how to say tickling, hugging, et cetera. These might be useful for some people.

[Becky]

Eventually, though, our friend Washington broke down and told GK it had likely been obvious for some time. Honestly. Come on now. Also that he would be leaving the army, which I certainly was not aware you could do in the middle of wartime. But I guess you have your commission for a certain amount of years, and then you're allowed to go.

[Susan]

Or maybe he was extending it already. So he was already on borrowed time with the army. Or the army was on borrowed time with him.

[Becky]

He also blithely informed Emily that his new job, that of completing his Father's bridge in Cincinnati, which had had to be shelved because of the war, would keep him away from her for months at a time after the wedding. To which it's like, record scratch. If I had that sound effect, I would put it here like. And she's like, absolutely not. I'm not going to live apart from a husband for most of every year I go or we don't get married.

[Susan]

I think he even tried like, well, it's going to take me a while to find a place for both of us to live in. And she's like, fine, take the time. I'll be coming in X number of.

[Becky]

Days I will tell you. Washington had another hard discussion with his father. There was a battle royale with cheese with grandpa over bringing a distraction to a work site. I will say, until he met her, Grandpa treated his son's intention to bring his wife to the bridge project not even to the construction site to the city in which the bridge project existed. Like a modern day employer angry about Gen Z on their phones in the walk in of a restaurant, for example. Like, you are just gonna be always skulking away, hiding, trying to get away with stuff so you can get back to your distraction. Until I say again, until he met her, hardly anyone ever got along with grandpa. Not really. He was a bossy dictator who threw his weight around. But when Emily came on a visit, the dominoes all fell.

[Susan]

She charmed everybody in that room at the ball. And she's charming, honestly charming. Not like putting on airs charming. She's very down to earth, even though she's very intelligent and that's obvious, she can talk on a wide range of subjects. But John just adored her, adored her. Saw it as a great union.

[Becky]

Emily not only charmed the entire family, but the hard boiled industrialists at the wire mill were all about her as well. I think it was that she had a great way of having a balance between asking knowledgeable questions, I. E. Letting the other person talk, which is a proven method of having a charm offensive. Like the more the person talks, the more intelligent they think you are. And then just adding in her own knowledge. Anyway, the hard boiled wire guys at the factory loved her. You know that. Spoiler alert would come in handy later.

[Susan]

Emily and Washington were married on January 18, 1865. They were married in Cold Spring, New York, her family's hometown, in a double wedding with one of her brothers who was also an officer in the Union Army. It was a double wedding, but it was kind of like the wedding of William and Kate for this Town because everybody was so excited to see Emily married and happy. That's how well she was liked in this area. That her wedding was a reason for the town to celebrate.

[Becky]

She's the Rory Gilmore of Cold Spring.

[Susan]

She is the Rory Gilmore. Oh, my God.

[Becky]

I've always wondered about that. Like, nobody cares when, like, her friend, anything happens, but something happens to Rory. The whole town is really invested.

[Susan]

Yeah, the similarities are pretty uncanny, aren't they? Charming, sweet, not offensive, down to earth. Very intelligent. Hmm, Interesting. Good one.

[Becky]

So the couple took up residence in the Roebling family home in Trenton, New Jersey, where a sort of suite had been carved out for their use. And Washington went off to Cincinnati for that bridge project to get his orders and to find a respectable place to live with his wife. He was equally afraid of both bosses, his father and his wife, trying to balance and walk on the knife edge at all times. He wrote back to Emily that he was daunted by the scale of this bridge project, but he kept it on side in front of his father. After Emily joined him in town, Grandpa, in a long awaited and frankly surprising show of confidence, left town, left his son to it, and went back to manage the wire business. There was so much pressure the whole time, but Grandpa was very much grooming him to be his successor. And by doing this, he was showing the world he was creating his replacement for his bridge dynasty. You know what? It takes a big person to do that, I think. No, it wasn't completely selfless. Grandpa leaving his son in charge of the Cincinnati Bridge because he had another big, big project in the works. He made what turned out to be an unsuccessful bid for a suspension bridge in St. Louis. And that particular suspension bridge was blocked by, I say, and so do a lot of people, the ferry companies. There was a lot of bad, bad PR about the concept of suspension bridge in the first place. Fueled by some very inconvenient recent disasters involving suspension bridges. A corrupt government in St. Louis. I'm sorry to say that that was an unsuccessful project for Grandpa. Ultimately, the contract went to a Mr. Eads. And Mr. Eads created the cast iron Eads bridge that we have talked about so much in St. Louis that you can still see today and still exists. More on Mr. Eads a little bit later. So let's leave Papa and go back to Cincinnati to our young friends, Washington and Emily Roble and their project that has been so long delayed by the Civil War.

[Susan]

This particular bridge was going to be the world's largest suspension bridge, but it had been in the works for 19 years, you decide, yes, we need a bridge here. But between permits and surveys and plans and everything that happens, it had taken 19 years. And of course, in this situation, they also had a war in the middle of it. That kind of put the hold on things, but they wanted to get this bridge done.

[Becky]

For almost two years, the younger Roebling worked to finish the world's largest suspension bridge. Washy. I think I'm gonna call him Washy now. Cause that's what Emily called him. He was grateful to come home and have someone to thrash over the day's challenges with. He didn't have to hold it together so much, you know, anymore. All the time, just out in the world. And then he came home and was able to really talk things through. And I quote, even though you know nothing about it, unquote, it was relieving to talk to her about it. And I'm telling you, the amount of things I know about the restaurant and bar industry. Yep. I'm not starting at zero. And neither is Emily.

[Susan]

No.

[Becky]

No.

[Susan]

And she's so curious that I think wanting to learn the family business, even not to be a participant, just to learn it, is something that she was going to be doing. So everything that they talked about, when he vented about something, she took the information from that that she needed to understand this better and kept it.

[Becky]

Now you will read a legend, including assorted members of the Roebling family, traveling from Brooklyn to New York City on one of the ubiquitous fairies that were really the only way to cross the east river that divided the cities. And suddenly, the story goes, all of the ferries were frozen in place. And Grandpa John Roebling, impatient with the inefficiency of ferry travel, decided to put forth a plan to create a bridge between Brooklyn and New York. You know, steam engines had made the boats faster, but they still froze. And we can't have that. But, you know, the facts are, for decades, people had wished for a better way to connect these two giant economies. It's the first and third most populous city in America. I think the second is Philadelphia, but don't quote me on that, because I don't know. I didn't look that up. So we needed a faster way than a fleet of ferry boats, especially for commercial travel. And the east river, though, was this treacherous waterway. And technology of the day just had not been sufficient to overcome the obstacles until now. And Grandpa John did pull some levers and make some pitches and get things moving in the right direction. Steam had gathered figuratively this time. Since we're not talking about steam Fairy Boats. Just mental steam. And a consortium of business and government entities finally formed something called the New York Bridge company. And they nominated who else but the premier bridge builder in America, Mr. John Roebling, Grandpa himself to be the chief engineer of what was being called the East River Bridge. Warmer senior days are calling. You can fuel up for them with factors no prep, no mess meals. Whatever your wellness goals are, you can meet them thanks to the menu of chef crafted meals with options like calorie smart, protein plus and keto.

[Susan]

They have 35 different meals to choose every week with 60 add ons. So you can add and mix and match things every week so you don't have to eat exactly the same thing over and over again. I recently got my box and my son went away to school. So I had more meals than I knew I was going to eat in a week. So I brought half of them over to my in laws and they loved them. And then my friend Heather said she was interested in getting a factored subscription for a her in laws and I thought well that's interesting, what a nice gift that is.

[Becky]

And it would also be good for new parents for a present.

[Susan]

Oh for sure, because it's just two minutes in the microwave. I was picking my meals for upcoming weeks and I saw a new one. To me it was a party dip duo. Buffalo dip and creamy parmesan spinach dip.

[Becky]

I love a dip.

[Susan]

I do too.

[Becky]

Sometimes dips are my downfall. What if you eat them for dinner? I think that's good.

[Susan]

And you know what would go really well with that? They have a watermelon lime refresher. That's like a whole summer meal right there.

[Becky]

I think we have the makings of a little back porch party. Well, head to FactorMeals.com hc50 and use code hc50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month.

[Susan]

That's code [e-mail] slash hc50 to get 50% OFF your first box plus 20% OFF your next month while your subscription is active.

[Becky]

So here the younger Roeblings are in Cincinnati and the project was coming to a close.

[Susan]

This bridge, as we said, is the longest suspension bridge in existence. At the time, at 1,057ft, it was called the Cincinnati Covington Bridge, although now it's called the John A. Roebling suspension bridge.

[Becky]

So as soon as the bridge was open for business and collecting the ahs and O's of a grateful municipality, Grandpa had a new job for his son. I need you to go to Europe on a Fact finding mission. This project on the east river is going to require a technique I'm not yet that familiar with. And I need you to go become the expert on it, please. I'll pay for your trip. Take Emily, like, woo, take Emily when you didn't even want her to come to Cincinnati and now you want her to go to Europe.

[Susan]

And he's like, I'll pay for everything, full expenses. And Emily's like packing her bag right away. We are going to Europe.

[Becky]

You know, they'd never had a honeymoon because of that Cincinnati bridge.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

So Emily was so excited for her first trip to Europe. It's not like getting on a red eye and waking up in Heathrow, though. Of course, the Atlantic crossing at this point in history takes two weeks, which is pretty long, but it's down from five or six before steam power. So two weeks of enforced leisure and gourmet food. Hooray. But for a seasick person, it's really no joke.

[Susan]

Also, it's no joke if you're pregnant, which Emily was. She was just finishing up her first trimester. So, you know, if she was gonna get morning sickness, she's having it now. She wasn't a good C person ever anyway, so that had to be a very rough passage for her.

[Becky]

Let's just say she was chumming the waters the whole way across the Atlantic. It was a bit of an ordeal. You had to want it. You had to want it. Now it's vacation plus work. They did get to see some of the sights. Westminster Abbey, et cetera. Highly recommend. Except for the fact that Susan and I both got Covid there. But that won't happen to Emily because Covid doesn't exist yet. But they also went to factories and bridge construction sites, rolled out the red carpet for John Roebling's son. I mean, what he was investigating was this relatively new technology called a pneumatic caisson. And I'm going to say with. I'm going to stay with casein. There's 30 different pronunciations. I'm just going to stay with the same one. What is a casein? Well, did your mother or father in this egalitarian age ever give you a cup to play with in the tub? If you push it straight down, there's resistance because guess what, it's full of air. But if you tip it just a little bit, the water rushes in. In fact, enterprising young men of history had been using barrels as sort of diving bells, using this same principle to scour riverbeds for valuables and scra Metal for a long time. You know, you get the barrel in two hands, you go straight down, and you've got a bit of air to breathe. You kind of have to hurry, but at least you know you can go where other people couldn't go. Well, engineers had begun using giant versions of these made of metal or wood to sink down into a body of water. And then they'd pump air in. That's the pneumatic part of the pneumatic casein to keep the pressure equalized inside. And men could work in there under the water. And that's exactly what was needed for grandpa's new project under the East River. It sounds like a living nightmare to me.

[Susan]

Oh, no kidding. I mean, you're in this watertight dark box. And their job is to dig up the bottom until they find bedrock to rest the foundation of the bridge. So they're just digging and digging until they hit solid rock. That's a lot of muck at the.

[Becky]

Same time in the same place. Cruising around Europe, Mr. Eads, you know, the St. Louis Eads Bridge man, was also observing the very same developments, with plans to use case on construction in his own bridge. Here's the thing. We should link you to the ongoing beef between Mr. Eads and the Roeblings. Like who copied who? Did someone violate a patent for an airlock? Did a corrupt government in St. Louis block the Roeblings out for no reason? Whole theses have been written on this rivalry. Like two houses, both alike, indignity from ancient grudge, like da da da. It's more Hatfield than McCoy, honestly, than Capulet and Montague. It's dirty pool and involves a lot of politicians. But the thing is, khe sans were the zeitgeist. They're in the world. It's like a spirit of innovation sparking up all over the world, similar to the way that railroads started. Small. And all of a sudden, like everywhere there was a railroad, well, everywhere there's a caisson. And doors were opened for Washington Roebling that the average engineer wouldn't have had access to. Washington Roebling gradually became arguably perhaps the world's best educated engineer on caisson technology. The preeminent expert on this in the entire world. You know how it is with nerds or aficionados of really anything. All of us have probably regaled our bemused spouses. In fact, you and I have. With history stories.

[Susan]

Uh huh. Oh yeah, I wear that badge of nerd honor.

[Becky]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Emily's evenings were full of bedrock and pressure and oxygen levels and Limestone and his frequent trips away from home as her pregnancy advanced and she was no longer allowed to really travel, might have been a secret relief to her, except for one major thing.

[Susan]

One day while they were in Germany, Emily took a tumble down a flight of stairs. The whole flight. Now, remember, at this point, she's pregnant. She is in her last trimester, very close to the end, and she fell down those stairs. She got beat up a little bit, bruised and battered. She said she was fine. Emily went back home to the town that they were staying in. It was the same town that Grandpa John Roebling was born in, coincidentally. And three weeks after that tumble, she went into labor. Now, because it was in that same town, there was a lot of Roeblings in the town and three of them were doctors, so they were able to oversee her birth. But after the child was delivered, a.

[Becky]

12 pound baby boy, mine was a third of that size. One third. Has anyone listening to this show ever had a 12 pound baby? I think my one percentile son, first percentile the whole way, didn't reach 12 pounds until he was a year old. And I'm not even joking. Yeah, no, scary to me.

[Susan]

No, I think my heaviest was about nine. I know as a mom, I'm supposed to be able to bring up the 9.2 or whatever. I can't remember that. That was a big baby for the Roeblings. Unfortunately, Emily's bleeding didn't stop. It didn't stop for weeks. She lost so much blood. The doctors kept trying to, you know, slow it down because this is how women die in childbirth in this era. And finally they did stop it. Unfortunately, there was so much damage that she was never going to be able to have children ever again. So their one child, little John August Roebling ii, was going to be their only child. And she knew it.

[Becky]

After everybody was well. And I will tell you, that's almost a month after this child was born. Her life had been in danger for that long. Everyone dressed in their finery and went to a cathedral to have the child baptized. And through some confluence of events, inattention, open space, whatever, another couple sort of jumped the line and got in front of them in the baptism line, okay. And Emily was very alarmed. The priest said, I now baptize you, Johan Augustus Roebling. Oh, no, no, no, wait, you have the papers in the wrong order. They got in front of us and that's our child's name, actually. And everybody's like, hello, this child has the same name. Yeah, this. You're in the town of Roebling Sure. Here. You know, and Johan is a pretty common name. And so basically Johan Augustus Roebling was followed by John August Roebling. What are the chances? Emily was really disturbed by that though. It seemed like a weird. It just seemed like a weird thing. I will tell you. There was another Jet at Jet's school and that mom was so angry that she didn't speak to me.

[Susan]

Are you kidding me?

[Becky]

I'm not kidding you. Oh my gosh, she was so angry. Well, she was kind of angry that the secretaries called her son Otherjet.

[Susan]

Okay, well, there's a good reason, I.

[Becky]

Guess that's not a good reason to not speak to me.

[Susan]

Well, understand.

[Becky]

Plus Jet's named after somebody. It's not like I reached into her brain and stole her baby name like that lady did to Charlotte in Sex and the City.

[Susan]

Right?

[Becky]

How's that for a throwback? Yeah, you just.

[Susan]

I bet that's not written down in papers in front of you.

[Becky]

I even remember the name Shayla, right?

[Susan]

Oh really? I honestly don't remember. I vaguely even recall the storyline, which.

[Becky]

Does not seem like a very Charlotte York name to like. But anyway, there you go. So she was a little bit discombobulated because of. It was kind of weird and embarrassing and just not the way it was supposed to go. But she rallied, had a great tea at the house, plenty of cake and coffee and everyone was very happy.

[Susan]

I read one thing that said that in the church register they wrote James instead of John. Did you read that too?

[Becky]

I did.

[Susan]

No, I think it was a mistake that they wrote somebody wrote James.

[Becky]

Yeah, they were probably discombobulated too because like what just happened here? Like, I'm just going to write some names starting in J. Yeah, something will be right. She wrote back to her father in law and I quote the name of John A. Roebling must ever be identified with you and your works, but with a mother's pride and fond hopes for her firstborn. I trust my boy may not prove unworthy of the name. Though I cannot hope that he will ever make it as famous as you have done. That's nice.

[Susan]

It's very nice. She was fond of her father in law just like he was fond of her. It was a two way fondness. Street. Is that probably.

[Becky]

He treated her better than anyone else in his life and she's like, I don't know why you guys don't like him. It's because he's not like this when you're not here.

[Susan]

Yeah, right. I had a family member like that. Yeah. And when he Passed away. All the people that showed up at his funeral talking about what a wonderful person he was and how he'd give you the shirt off his back and the whole family is like, are we. Are we in the right room?

[Becky]

Oh, interesting.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

Everyone probably has a lot of different selves. Probably show the different people.

[Susan]

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

[Becky]

Philosophy.

[Susan]

I think for us typical people, our versions are very similar. Just maybe a little more polished or a little more sweary, you know, but basically the same personality. But this guy, it was two totally different people. We had talked before about how bridges take a long time before they even started to be built. In this case, this bridge took John 12 years. He's dealing not just with one city, he's dealing with the city of New York and the city of Brooklyn. They're not part of the same city at this point in time, so he's having to work within them. That corporation, the New York Bridge Company, had to sell shares. You know, they needed to get funding for this project. Don at one point took a Greatest Hits tour with some of the prospective investors and they went upstate to look at a bridge he built over Niagara Falls. And then they went to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh just showing these people, these are the kind of bridges I build. I'm going to be able to do this one. And they got the funding doing things like that. So it's taken a long time to get to this point where they can actually start work on the bridge.

[Becky]

So now that Grandpa was ready for him, Washington had received his next assignment. Now that he was the world's foremost expert in pneumatic caissons, he was to come home and begin work on his father's greatest project, the new East River Bridge. And so the little family came back and took up residence at the corner of Hicks and Cranberry Streets. 59 Hicks street in Brooklyn. If you would like to Google search it, it is still there. Hooray. So many of these places are not. The next chapter of their lives were about to begin. And here's what the young Roeblings thought would happen. Washington would be his papa's able assistant on the great bridge, likely continuing his papas workaholic ways, as expected by Grandpa. Showing up at odd hours, home to eat a little sandwich and like, wash the stink off, kiss the fam, disappear again. There would most likely be a handoff at some point in the future. Grandpa actually said he'd never have taken this bridge on if he didn't have a qualified son to help him. That's a lot From Grandpa. That's a lot. So Emily was going to need a lot of inner resources for her future independent existence. But everything changed in July of 1869, the year Emily turned 25. Grandpa John was doing some prep work on the Brooklyn side of the future bridge. And he was very intent on his calculations and didn't notice the approaching ferry. He tripped backwards and got stuck in a way that he was helpless to save himself when the approaching fairy basically crushed his foot between itself and the dock. It's nothing, it's nothing. He's yelling at everyone, at all the anxious onlookers, including Washington. And they carried Grandpa to Emily's house and installed him in a bedroom upstairs. After a day of shock, Grandpa dismissed the doctors. He thought they were monsters and didn't know anything. You know, that's his is his ground state, isn't it?

[Susan]

It is. John was really into hydropathy, which is using water either internally or externally to cure everything. This had been a long time thing, he swore by water as a cure all. So he invented this gizmo that had a constant stream of water on his foot where his injury was. He insisted that he be the one to bandage it. You know, he's, he's in charge. The doctors, at this point, there's nothing that they can do because he knows it all.

[Becky]

Ironically, for a man who had made his fortune in metal, tetanus took hold of him sometime after his accident. We've covered tetanus before during the Carrie Nation podcast. It's not the medal itself, but the deep wounds that deliver the bacteria to the bloodstream that cause tetanus paralysis, seizures and death. And there were no antibiotics in 1869. We are 41 years from the first one. John Roebling suffered an agonizing death. Agonizing. Watched over by his devoted daughter in law, Emily, and his horrified son.

[Susan]

Even Washington, who had seen his fair share of battlefield injuries and deaths, wrote later, I was the miserable witness of the most horrible, titanic convulsions when the body is drawn into a half circle, the back of the head meeting the heels. When he finally died one morning at sunrise, I was nearly dead myself from exhaustion. And I have to say, right after I learned about this, I had a doctor's appointment. And she's like, you're due for a tetanus shot. I'm like, yeah, yep, right here. Absolutely, I'll take it. Yep.

[Becky]

And now this epic project, this massive bridge, the bridge that was going to be the longest suspension bridge in the world after its completion, was given to 32 year old Washington Roebling to complete as chief engineer. He was the natural choice. He had all the background. He had the name. He was legitimately very frightened. He wrote, the prop on which I had hitherto leaned had fallen. Henceforth I must rely only on myself. At first I thought I would succumb, but I had a strong tower to lean upon. My wife, a woman of infinite tact and wisest counsel. Hello, the History Chicks listeners. This episode is proudly brought to you by Lola V. An award winning hair care line founded by the fabulous and iconic Jennifer Aniston.

[Susan]

And at this time of year we understand the tortures that we put our hair through. Frequent coloring, heat styling, stress and all those summer elements. When you're at the pool, when you're in the ocean, just being outside in the sun damages your hair.

[Becky]

Just being in the air with all that humidity makes curly hair and wavy hair look something else.

[Susan]

Jen, look at us. First name basis. Jennifer Aniston was fed up with the constant damage and the choice between using haircare products that worked versus those that were genuinely beneficial. The product that Jen and her industry leading chemists developed is a technology known known AS Biomanetic Peptide Pro 3. All we need to know is that it's derived from Chia seeds and that the technology constructs a new protective cuticle around your hair where the damage begins and it helps keep it healthy and looking its best.

[Becky]

Think of it as an all around defense against both signs of aging and damage on your hair.

[Susan]

Yeah, after the summer I think I'm going to get that intensive repair treatment. You just have to do it once a week. I can do that.

[Becky]

Nice.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

And here's a treat for you. For a limited time you get an exclusive 15% off your entire [e-mail] just use code Chicks at checkout.

[Susan]

I did just place an order with Lola V. I got a travel set because we have a couple trips in our future. Now I have curly hair and I use that perfecting leave in after I wash it and then as my refresh in the mornings I use that glossing detangler. So I'm going to be all set on our trips.

[Becky]

Also, it smells very good.

[Susan]

Smells so good. It does.

[Becky]

So check out all Lolavi products in your local Ulta Beauty location. That's good. So you can give them a little smell to experience the luxurious scent for yourself or head directly to their [e-mail] and as our loyal listeners, you'll get an exclusive 15% off your entire order when you use the Code Chicks at.

[Susan]

Checkout, that's 15% off your order. At L O L A V I E.com with promo code chicks, please note you can only use one promo code per order, and discounts can't be combined.

[Becky]

After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them what we sent you. And your hair will thank you. And so the east river bridge project was about to begin. And the first task was actually in Washington's wheelhouse, Not to use too water focused, a metaphor, at least theoretically. You know, the sinking of the caissons. And they started in Brooklyn. It's shallower there and more clear as to geology. He thought, well, I'm going to iron out the kinks over here on the shallow side before moving to the more challenging side. Makes sense to me. Construction of the caissons themselves was an engineering feat.

[Susan]

These things are 102ft by 170ft. So I went to our favorite, the measure of things website. That's like the approximate width of a football field and the length of two semi trailers.

[Becky]

Hmm.

[Susan]

So a football field by two semi trailers is the size of these ginormous wooden boxes and no bottom because it has to be open. The casings needed to be watertight. They were built out of pine timber. And it sounds almost like a corrugated box. There's a layer of pine timber that's flat, and then there's like zigzaggies on the inside and then another layer of. You know, when you cut a box in half and you look at the corrugation, it's kind of like that, only with pieces of wood.

[Becky]

You know, I don't know if anyone else in the gifted and talented program, lol, which where are we all now? Made these things, these bridges out of straws. Does anyone else remember this project? And you had to build it strong enough to have somebody sit on it, and it was always triangles, always triangles for strength. Yeah, I mean, total sense.

[Susan]

No, I don't remember that from the gifted class because guess what? Guess who wasn't in there. Typical brain, Susan. Yeah, you're right. Triangles every six feet around this sides of this box is a iron band that's about 3 inches long. And it kind of holds it together like duct tape on the sides of this box every six feet. The whole thing was divided into six rooms. And once the caisson was going to be in place, they would be able to cut doors in those six rooms so that the workers and the material that they were pulling out, you know, could go across the whole space.

[Becky]

Ultimately there would be pneumatic tubes for air passages for men in materials and waste products. All of these things had to be thought of before you would sink the.

[Susan]

Casino, sink the seven ton casein.

[Becky]

Getting it in place was enough of an engineering miracle, but it was in place and it began to sink down. It was weighted down with limestone. And some brave souls, many brave souls vied for these jobs, digging out the soil and rocks, mostly by hand. I mean, not by hand, but with hand tools, you know. In a gloomy hot box that visitors described as looking and smelling like one of the circles of hell. They got about $50 a day in modern money. It was $2 a day, or 225 if you were a good negotiator. So about $50 a day in modern money for a largely untested, unregulated workplace. But that's double the average wage of the time. They ran 24 hour shifts, three 8 hour shifts. There was constant activity on the site as Washington wouldn't ask anyone to do anything or be anywhere that he didn't go himself. Mr. Boss. Down through the caisson daily there were industrial accidents. A pressure blowout that was alarming and with great presence of mind. Mr. Roebling, who was in the caisson at the time, simply shut a door and the panic was extinguished. But the true danger was invisible. There was a mysterious syndrome affecting workers all over the world who worked in these conditions, though no one knew why. Weakness, headache, eye trouble, difficulty breathing. There was a party trick you would do, bringing a visitor down. Can you blow out this candle? Guess what? You cannot. You cannot blow it out down there. No one knew why and no one knew this, of course, but those men were the very first in the world to suffer the pressure sickness that divers now know as the bends, but at the time was known as caisson sickness. It's nitrogen bubbles that form in your blood and your tissues from a sudden decrease of pressure. So going down is not your problem. Coming up is your problem. Coming up too fast is your problem. And they had literally no idea that that was happening. And why would they? These are the first people to go that deep, right, and experience that pressure.

[Susan]

Right? You know, they got to name the Benz during this time because that's how the workers would come up. As soon as they got outside, they would just bend over. You know, they just double over in pain because their muscles aren't working, their joints are aching, they're very dizzy. It was not a great thing to happen to you because some people died.

[Becky]

From it, several workers had died, but there was never a thought that a hale and hearty man like Mr. Roebling would be in any danger. In December of 1870, after a horrifying incident in which the caisson roof literally caught on fire with people in it, and all the subsequent panic and action, a night of firefighting, a reemergence of the fire. From a hidden air pocket in those triangular strength pockets in the wood, Washington came up out of the caisson and collapsed.

[Susan]

And for the second time, yet another robling chief engineer on this project was brought to Emily's front door for recuperation. He couldn't stand. He was in so much pain. She had to give him full body massages that lasted for hours with salt and whiskey.

[Becky]

I looked that up and there is actually a high end, and I mean high end spa somewhere in the west. They add sage to it, by the way, where we'll. They'll give you that same massage, I guess. Salt reduces inflammation.

[Susan]

Okay.

[Becky]

And the whiskey is folk medicine for numbing sore muscles. I guess since nobody knew it was in your joints, she probably thought it was a muscle pain.

[Susan]

And you know, they call it rubbing alcohol because they rubbed it on muscles. Yeah. Okay.

[Becky]

Great grandma used to put whiskey on baby's gum. Not my great grandma, but like people's great grandma, like teething babies would get a thumb full of whiskey on their gum to numb them. So I think salt and whiskey seems cockamamie, but I can see where it comes from in folk medicine. I really can.

[Susan]

Epsom salts.

[Becky]

Yeah.

[Susan]

I mean, I remember my kids coming home from football and having to take an Epsom salt bath. It totally makes sense.

[Becky]

So word came from the site that the fire had come back and the news acted like a lever to get that man out of bed. Despite Emily's best efforts to. To keep him at home. I have a man like that too, Emily. I know. He went back and made a decision.

[Susan]

Washington decided that the only way to truly get all the fire out was to flood the cason. All this time keeping the water out. Now they need to flood it and put the fire out for good. That's going to set things back a while.

[Becky]

You know what? It was a delay. But at least he was up top for a while, you know, Hooray for that. Well, once the Brooklyn side was completed and work began on the tower there, it was filled with concrete and anchored. The whole operation moved to the New York side. And this bedrock was significantly further down, almost doubly further down. And the instances of caisson disease Were exponentially worse. Several workers died instantly upon exiting the khe sanh as they got further than the brooklyn one had gone down. A doctor was hired and did the best he could. There were hundreds of cases. And so he decided he's going to ask people recommend that they wait in this airlock that had been installed, which still operates in caissons. Now, you wait in the airlock for a bit before you come up. Up. Well, that's 20 unpaid minutes. I'm not doing that. And 20 minutes, honestly, given the science of today, 20 minutes is not going to do anything they recommend, like two and a half hours. So they didn't do it to their peril. They were on the right track, you know, but they didn't know why. Well, as the work went deeper, the danger increased. Until one day in the spring of 1872, Emily again witnessed her husband carried in through the front door. At death door this time, no one thought he would recover. No one thought, he's coming back from this. The doctor, in fact, sort of threw him into a morphine coma as a last resort. The assistant engineers kept the ball rolling at the site as best they could While everyone held their breath. And he rallied just long enough to determine, you know, what, it is too dangerous to proceed downward. I mean, even if I have volunteers willing to work for this money, I. It can't be on my conscience. I can't let anyone dig any further. And he did this geological survey of the layer of material that was under the caisson, and he said, this sand has sat this way for millions of years, and I don't see it moving. We're going to stop here. This is where we stop.

[Susan]

You know, he was, in addition to being the world's foremost authority on caissons, also a mineralogist. He has been collecting rocks for years, you know, analyzing them and identifying them. So he knows this stuff. And for him to say, yes, let's stop, let's call it, let's fill it with cement and keep going. So those caissons that they were working in back in the 1860s and 70s are still down there on the bottom of the east river. It blows my mind.

[Becky]

Well, and then he collapsed again, back into the coma, back into insensibility. And there was a sort of unspoken coalition of silen. There was, even though he woke up, A gradual decline in Washington's abilities to supervise on site. The recurrences of his seizures just happened more and more frequently. He came less and less often to the job site, Even after he became ambulatory. He suffered from depression, fatigue, inability to walk, to tolerate loud noises. He was constantly nauseous, all of his joints ache. Until the point where he could no longer even go to the job site at all. His assistants had to come to him at the house. Emily went to speak with the president of the New York Bridge Company and had just. In a matter of full disclosure, she was going to tell this man the system that she and her husband had worked out for the work on the towers, which was the next stage.

[Susan]

What Emily proposed was Wash would still do all the work at home. He would dictate everything in detail, and she would be the person to bring it down to the job site. And anything that they had, she would bring it back to Wash for his opinion and his next direction. It's going to be temporary, she said. This is just temporary until he gets back on his feet. It's going to be fine. But you have to remember at this point, she's had nine years of living in the family business. She's got the lingo down.

[Becky]

And she said he's fully capable of adapting the design if any incidents or obstacles occur, as we have just suffered. He's perfectly capable, as he's been doing all along. She is very persuasive, bolstered by evidence, bolstered by technological know how she did. A little razzle dazzle, I think. A little razzle dazzle. Mr. Murphy is his name, agreed to everything. And it could have ended here. The Robling involvement could have ended here with his incapacitation, but it did not, thanks to Emily. Now Washington was very anxious that he wouldn't live to see his bridge completed the way that his father had not lived to see the bridge completed. He began to write copious and detailed notes for every possibility that might happen during the bridge's construction, something his own father had done before the tetanus took hold. Completely, by the way. He. Unfortunately, as his disabilities became more severe, he had to have the con to Emily. As his vision began to fail, everything had to be done. He had it in his memory and he would dictate it. He couldn't even read her writing. She had to read back. And he would edit and she would rewrite and he would edit after she read it back. It was very cumbersome, I thought.

[Susan]

And every step of the way, she's still gaining more knowledge because she wants a full understanding of this information that he's having her write down that she's gonna have to convey to the people down at the job site.

[Becky]

She wants to be able to answer questions because you can't just trot back. It's not like you can call them. She wants to know what questions might arise. She wants to know how to answer them. Well, gradually her husband's nerves got so bad that those reassuring visits from the assistant engineers had to cease. He couldn't bear it. The only person he could stand to be in a room with at all was Emily. And this is when Emily Roebling took on a Herculanean task, one for which she had in no real way been prepared, starting as secretary and messenger, but over time educating herself with Washington's tutelage on engineering principles, materials, mathematics and physics.

[Susan]

Later on, an anonymous source would tell a reporter, quote, as soon as Mr. Roebling was stricken with that peculiar fever which has since prostrated him, Mrs. Roebling applied herself to the study of engineering. And she succeeded so well that in a short time she was able to assume the duties of chief engineer.

[Becky]

Every day Emily Roebling went to the job site, plans under her arm, notebook at the ready, to give instructions and answer questions overtly. She was her husband's representative in all things. She received delegations at the house and at the site. She kept up professional records and all the correspondence, all officially on the DL. But it started to become an open secret among the bridge brotherhood. Many is the time that a group of men arriving at the house, expecting their problems to be conveyed upstairs, were surprised and actually gratified to have their problems untangled by Mrs. Roebling there and then in the living room as the towers rose higher and higher. Ultimately, I don't know if this was the goal, to get taller than Trinity Church. Trinity Church steeple was the highest thing in New York City. At 281ft high. The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are 278.25ft high. They just missed by under three feet. Maybe if you put a flag up it would catch if you glued it on. I don't know. I don't know what the ethos is. But Trinity Church would maintain its status as the tallest thing in New York for not very much longer because an old friend of ours would come along. In 1886, the Statue of Liberty comes in at 305 and finally beat Trinity Church. But we got close. Shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall is always a challenge, but always something I look forward to. I have been known to wear a cardigan, like in the nonsense area of August in order to like bring about fall for everyone. You're welcome.

[Susan]

I look forward every year to your post with that Billie Idol It's a nice day for a cardigan meme.

[Becky]

Luckily, Quint's offers both timeless and high quality items that I love and so my wardrobe can stay fresh year after year and I don't have to blow my budget.

[Susan]

They have cashier sweaters from $50 pants for every occasion, washable silk tops. I have one of those and a washable silk skirt. But did you remember me ever saying that I'd like to buy one new thing before a trash? Oh, so we have a trip coming. Actually we have two. So I bought a dress for both of them and it's a really nice transitional piece. It's a jersey ruched waist dress. It's got short sleeves but it looks great with a cardigan over it or just a button up shirt tied at my waist. It's dress up, dress down, super comfortable and need I say it has pockets.

[Becky]

By partnering directly with factories, Quince is able to cut the prices of classic iconic pieces by 50 to 80%. And most important to me, Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. So that's very important to me when I am looking for clothes to buy make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high quality closet essentials Classics really. Go to quince.comchicks for free shipping on your order and and 365 day returns.

[Susan]

That's Quince Q U I N C E.com chicks to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

[Becky]

Quince.com chicks it's a nice day for a cardigan. Emily weathered more challenges despite its OG status as steel cable manufacturers. Believe it or not, the Robling wire company had not won the contract for the cable. I think there were some shady dealings. At the last minute a member of the board put forth a proposal that no one with any interest in the bridge itself should be able to bid on the contract. Despite Washington selling his interest in the Roebling company on purpose to avoid that regulation, the secondary company won the contract and they produced inferior defective material and they evaded and tricked inspectors to get their substandard material through. It's this is no small thing. This is a bridge that would carry tens of thousands of people. And famously there was a cable that snapped and just whipped out and caused a couple of fatalities. It called attention to the problem of this cable bridge. Failures had happened often enough to cause sort of like PR panic. But here's the thing, Mr. Roebling, this is Grandpa Roebling and then followed by Washington Roebling. Those two Roblings had Overbuilt had over engineered the cable. They made the specs six times stronger than necessary. So as much as of the defective material as possible was removed or strengthened. Future shipments came from, guess who? Roebling Brothers. As should have happened in the first place. It should be noted right here, this is the only time I'm going to mention it, that Roebling cable is also included in the Golden Gate Bridge. But that's later. But I'm just saying like we could have avoided all of this by just.

[Susan]

Going with them in the first place. Yeah. The guy that got the contract, that company had been making furniture springs and the wire that went into hoop skirts and suddenly they're going to be making this massive wire. So the owner of that company was kind of a shady guy to begin with. So I think your thought that there was some behind scheming going on is probably spot on. But to keep it quiet, Washington said, okay, at your expense, you're going to add 150 more layers of wire to this wire. We're not going to pay for it. You're going to do it. Yeah.

[Becky]

They had to strengthen the defective parts.

[Susan]

Right. And it's not going to get out in the news because that's going to hurt everybody. Not just the guy that it should have hurt who eventually got caught with another scheme and, and went to prison. So.

[Becky]

But here out there is that famous cable snap. Okay, that's out there. People saw it. People were walking around and saw it with their eyeballs. Okay, what are we going to do about that? Well, Emily wrote a series of presentations for the master mechanic, a Mr. Farrington, to deliver along with visual aids lantern slides. Ooh, so fancy.

[Susan]

I'm thinking, oh, just like the slides of today, except not on a PowerPoint presentation, but with a lantern.

[Becky]

Well, Mr. Farrington was kind of a rock star because he had been the very first person to cross the east river on question mark. The bridge I wrote on. He basically ziplined across the lead wire. I mean cojones on this man.

[Susan]

I know. Well, I'm reading these descriptions and these books are going into all this. This like using a lot of words to say he was on a boson's chair. It's like a wooden plank with wires that went over just like a zip line. But it's called a boson's chair.

[Becky]

Well, he became the hottest commodity of the city. Literally he went across and everybody's like woo. They see him go across and boats are like honk, honk or whatever you call. I don't know if you Say honk. When you're a boat, you're the boat person, you know? Yeah.

[Susan]

You say hunk.

[Becky]

Okay. Well, anyway, so he was a big. And then, of course, Mr. Showboat at the end was like feeling himself and decided he didn't need to hold on with both hands. He didn't need to sit his booty on the plank. He stood up like a giant fool and held on with one hand and doffed his hat to his adoring public. I mean, the masculinity. But you know what? That's the guy. That's the guy that went out and delivered those lectures. So it was like a twofer. Like everybody. Like you needed to get to people's emotions, right? Make them feel better about the bridge. So they remembered him and his activities with the hat and the woo and, you know, in the honking. It was great. And then that guy, like, reassured. And that was good. That was pr. That's a lady. Emily wrote those. The lectures were a giant hit. From time to time, Emily and Washington had to work together to prevent the bridge company from appointing another engineer to take over on sites. History tends to credit Emily's knowledgeable and impassioned speech to the bridge board. It could also be that her husband threatened to completely resign and tell the press why. It's like a carrot and a stick type of thing. They. But their big objective was to prevent a third party from getting in because once Mr. Roeing's name was taken off, then nobody's going to remember who started the bridge, you know?

[Susan]

Right.

[Becky]

Emily was very concerned that her husband's legacy not be erased by a late comer. So all of the business, though, went through Mrs. Roebling. It became increasingly clear to pretty much everyone that she dealt with the suppliers, you know, they were sometimes very opportunistic and she had to handle that kind of crime over and over. She dealt with the press, with the government, with all the issues that arose during construction. Emily is operating very much like a chief engineer.

[Susan]

You know, I think she's doing even more than that because she's acting kind of like a building manager, too, because the chief engineer's job is to get the structure up and get it up properly. So she's helping do that with Washington's words, of course. But all this other stuff, you know, if there's a contractor that's accused of dishonesty, she's the one that has to handle it. When there's a lawsuit against the bridge company because there's a fear that it will interfere with navigation, she's the one that handles it, you know, so it's not just the mechanics of the bridge that she's conveying, but she's doing all this other stuff, all the while shielding.

[Becky]

Her husband and the public from her real involvement. Like, how would that be for people's Victorian masculinity? You know what I mean?

[Susan]

Right.

[Becky]

The public might think it's a trash project if they had known. I can't believe that. But that's true. Like, one of the actual members of the board resigned because he was so sickened by the fact that this was just going to fall down. Right. Because of that lady being in charge. Like, we're still in the women with too much education are ruining up their delicacy era, you know?

[Susan]

Right.

[Becky]

We're creeping out. We are creeping out, but we're still firmly in that era. Yeah, well, the real people know. You know what I mean? The real people. The real, real people know and approve. And the closest we come to public credit during the bridge's construction is this speech by an engineer to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Alumni Association. Let me read it to you. In the pictures of the master workman directing from his bed of pain the masterwork, I see another figure, a queen of beauty and fashion. Become a servant for love's sake. A true helpmate, furnishing swift feelings, skillful hands, a quick brain and strong heart to reinforce the weakness and weariness that could not, unassisted, fully execute the plans they form. But he stands with this assistance almost as in the vigor of health. Gentlemen, I know that the name of a woman should not be spoken in a public place. I am aware that a speech like this is especially audacious from the mouth of a stranger like myself. But I must utter what this moment half articulates upon all of your lips the name of Mrs. Washington Roble. But that was a brother to other brethren. That wasn't a brother to the press.

[Susan]

Right. And I got it. I'm just gonna throw this back out. There she is doing all of this work and helping her physically infirm husband, you know, with massages and just monitoring his health and. Oh, yes, they have a son. Okay, she's not doing it alone. They have staff. But she's raising his child as well in this house. And the house that they're living in at this point, it's a three story house in Brooklyn Heights, which at the time, and now, actually it was a very desirable neighborhood. But the beauty of this particular house is that it has a perfect view of the bridge, of the building Site. It's a myth that Washington was sitting at the window with a telescope, micromanaging the whole production. He wasn't.

[Becky]

No. From a lot of his invaliditude. I know that's not a real word. He was in Trenton, New Jersey, and I know of no telescope that powerful.

[Susan]

No.

[Becky]

That could account for the curvature of the earth, et cetera. No. So, yeah, that's another. Another one of those romantic myths. The man behind the curtains looking out with his telescope. He might have owned a telescope. There might have even been one in that room.

[Susan]

Yeah. And he might have looked through it, but his eyesight was going and he couldn't concentrate. You know, you'd have to look through one eye. He would most likely get very dizzy. You know, he couldn't stand up and be active for very long. So, yeah, that's a myth. She did get another really cool public moment as the construction progressed to a point that there was a walkway along the top of the bridge. There was this big fanfare celebration when the two cities were connected and there were dignitaries up there with champagne, and Emily was one of them.

[Becky]

Those men had PP filling their shoes. They were not well with being up that far in the air. And Mrs. Roebling just walked along. I mean, she could have been scared too, but she walked along as if it didn't matter. And literally the dudes got across, had their champagne and. And some of them fully took the fairy back.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

They were like, nope, I'm not about this life. Also, I need someone to knit me new socks, please.

[Susan]

You know what? I saw something that said that this walkway was open for a short period of time for the public.

[Becky]

You know, it probably. I don't know, it could have been until somebody did something stupid.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

I mean, I would say that's probably what happened, is they opened it, there was some nonsense. They had to shut it back down.

[Susan]

Yep.

[Becky]

There was an absolute crisis on the horizon. The mayor of Brooklyn, a man named Mr. Low, was absolutely determined to make his name and a path for himself to Congress by besmirching Robling's name and capabilities and throw him off the project. It would take all of Emily's behind the scenes calling in of favors, et cetera, to prevent this from happening. He's a pretty powerful man. As the mayor of Brooklyn, we can't.

[Susan]

Forget what class these people are. She and the family are in a house in Newport for the summer, and she has a reporter come in to interview Washington and herself, and she's kind of doing spin control. So she takes it up another level Emily herself spoke on his behalf at a meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers. And enough people believed in what Washington had done. She had given such an impassioned speech that they sided with him. And the board had no choice but to not vote him off as chief engineer. I mean, the thing is almost done. They've done the work, and this guy wants to just cruise in. Pfft.

[Becky]

Right.

[Susan]

Sorry. That's my. Me being very indignant about the whole thing.

[Becky]

Emily never forgave that mayor, as a matter of fact, for his interference. All that stress, all of this nonsense. Just as this roller coaster was finally entering the station a few weeks before the official opening of the bridge, Emily was the very first to drive across in a carriage carrying a rooster as a symbol of, well, prosperity, resilience. It's also a rooster as a symbol of hope, of the triumph of light over darkness, of life over death. There's many symbols that a rooster conveys.

[Susan]

Yeah. Boy, did I fall down a rooster rabbit hole.

[Becky]

Right?

[Susan]

Because I'm like, why a rooster? And then a lot of sources said it was a symbol of victory. The one that I kind of think sounds the most logical is Biblical. The day before Jesus was hung on the cross, he told his apostle Peter that Peter was gonna deny that he knew Jesus three times before the rooster crowed. And exactly that thing happened. But it was to show Peter that there was victory over the cross. I'm not gonna go into theological discussion. Cause I don't think I could fully explain it properly, but I think, yeah, so maybe some of her Catholic schooling had stuck. I don't know.

[Becky]

Okay, well, I am glad that makes sense to you. Cause it does. Not to me. So I. I'm very glad.

[Susan]

All the Christians are like, yeah, the rooster. That makes total sense. Okay.

[Becky]

Also, they are delicious in a soup.

[Susan]

Do we eat the roosters or just the hens?

[Becky]

Well, I mean, one day, don't you have to eat the roosters? I don't know. I really don't know. Farm people. Do we eat the roosters?

[Susan]

I would imagine.

[Becky]

Anyway, we can cut that part out.

[Susan]

That's not important.

[Becky]

Weirdly, there was a little side quest. Mr. Roebling wanted to see if the trotting action of the horse would have any noticeable effect at all. Bridges had fallen before when marching soldiers caused them to sway. As a matter of fact, since that happened, and to the present day, armies are told to, and I quote, break step when they reach a bridge so that everyone is not hitting it at the same time. There is an episode of Mythbusters in which they quote, disprove that that happens. And then they had to issue a very rare retraction.

[Susan]

Really.

[Becky]

And there's a second show that's like our bad, sorry about that really does happen. There is a bridge at our zoo here. Anyone in Kansas City knows the bridge. I mean that you can get a going on that one and scare the dickens out of everybody on the bridge by causing it to sway. That's not something you want in a bridge. Also, this seems very late in the game to worry about. This doesn't.

[Susan]

Maybe he had faith in his engineering abilities and his math and his over building, but he just wanted to make sure.

[Becky]

Well, my goodness.

[Susan]

I mean they were wrong on a lot of things. For instance, they had said at the very beginning that it was going to take five years and $4 million to build. And in reality it took 13 years and $15 million.

[Becky]

You know, I will say that Mr. John Roebling, Grandpa was absolutely notorious for underestimating because his whole thing was he wanted to get his foot in the door and then. How you like me now? You know.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

So maybe that wasn't Washington and Emily's fault necessarily.

[Susan]

Oh no, I don't think. Yeah, but I don't even think Washington thought it was gonna take as long as it did.

[Becky]

Right.

[Susan]

Yeah. They just kept hitting one setback after another. And not all of them had to do with his illness this.

[Becky]

Right. Well, opening day arrived May 24, 1883. There was a dedication ceremony. There was a procession of carriages of notables across the bridge followed by a huge reception at the Robling house, including a scale model of the bridge made out of sugar. The invitations came from Tiffany's and included the President of the United States of America. Also she had to invite that mayor of Brooklyn, which was not cool, but you gotta do it.

[Susan]

President Chester Arthur couldn't stop commenting about the lovely floral scent that was wafting through the Roebling house. I mean she had flower decorations everywhere. She had a bust of both her father in law and her husband on the mantel. She had commissioned a new portrait of Washington to hang in prominence. So in addition to all the daily stuff of getting this bridge built and the organizing of the ceremonies, I don't think she did all that herself, but she was involved in it. You know, in the opening ceremony. She's also planning this massive party at her house.

[Becky]

Yes, a party does not run itself. No, Mrs. Roebling received her guests with not her husband in the receiving line, but a close lady friend named Mrs. Wilson. He couldn't stand for that long. So he was in pride of place on a sofa greeting people. And she and Mrs. Wilson greeted the guests as they came in. And there was a little bit of a catastrophe. There were to have been fireworks. And Mr. Roebling at the last minute, absolutely panicked. He's like, you cannot have all these people standing on this bridge. You cannot. We didn't account for every single square foot of every single place being occupied by weight. And if the fireworks come and everybody goes to one side, it's going to be disastrous. And so the city fathers realized that would be real bad. Yeah, that would be bad. And so fireworks happened while the bridge was still closed to the public. Fireworks over. And then the bridge was opened at midnight.

[Susan]

And in that first 24 hours, 150,000 people crossed over the East River Bridge.

[Becky]

And one would think that their involvement was over. One would think that this was the time to drink margaritas and take a week long nap. Map. A week later, only a week later, there was a panic. It was just a matter of somebody had fallen, somebody screamed. Everyone got the impression, based on history, that something was happening to the bridge and it was falling down. And everyone started to run for the exits. 12 people were trampled to death. There was a great inquiry though, into it. They were hauled back before a board. And during the inquiry it was determined that that had nothing to do with the bridge itself. It was just public sentiment. A failure of police control of the crowd, basically a failure of communication and not of the bridge. Although there was great public hesitancy, you know, like I said, about the man that ziplined across the river, people don't always remember what is. They remember how they felt about the thing. Right, right. And so what they remember about the Brooklyn Bridge is that there was a thing and people died. And so everyone was very hesitant about this BR like it. It just had a vague sense of menace about it for a while.

[Susan]

Until the greatest showman himself, P.T. barnum, he had offered this up five years prior that he would pay $5,000 if he could do this. And they turned him down. But this time they're like, yeah, do it. So P.T. barnum led a parade of 21 elephants and 17 camels, which totaled about £10,000, across the Brooklyn Bridge with great fanfare, as only P.T. barnum can do.

[Becky]

I will say 10 years earlier than this moment on the bridge, the eads Bridge in St. Louis had opened with one elephant crossing it. I think they got that elephant from the zoo. They didn't have access to Mr. Barnum. They don't have robling access to elephants, but I'm just saying. So Mr. Eads did get there first with the elephants. Pretty amazing. I didn't actually realize elephants were so reassuring, but they were. It caused public sentiment to turn, and now it was like a beloved part of the city. All you need sometimes is a circus. Literally.

[Susan]

There was one more letter that Washington needed to dictate to Emily, and she happily did it. And that was his resignation as chief engineer on the bridge.

[Becky]

Hooray. We are done. We are done. At last.

[Susan]

I started to think about what I'm bringing to New York. I started a little pile. I put my Honey Love crossover bra because it's so comfortable without any wires. It's so comfortable for traveling in. Nothing to dig in.

[Becky]

You know, summer does mean more social events, more weddings to attend, especially if you're in a certain demographic. I think there were weekends in my 20s where I went to a different wedding every weekend.

[Susan]

I went to eight between 25 and 26. Eight weddings. Yep.

[Becky]

So that's why I'm so thankful for today's sponsor, Honey Love, for covering us with the best, best shapewear. With Honey Love, you can feel your best even when you're wearing less. Ah. See what we did there? They've revolutionized compression technology so you no longer have to feel like you're suffocating while you're wearing effective shapewear. And they're the only shapewear that won't ever roll down. Hasn't that happened? Like, all of a sudden you feel a little like it slips and you're like, oh, no. And now you're wearing a floatie. It doesn't feel good.

[Susan]

No. Because you can feel that it's doing it. Yeah. As a matter of fact, a couple years ago, I had a pair of shapewear that did that. And I went online. I'm like, I don't care how much I'm going to have to spend. But then I found Honey Love, which solved not only the rolling problem and the controlling problem and the feeling comfortable in my shapewear problem, but the prices were reasonable.

[Becky]

Honey Love actually features lingerie details, and it's made with breathable fabric that keeps you nice and cool, which is perfect for hot days. It is technology plus art for the year 2024. You can get Honey Love on sale for a limited time. Get 20% off your entire order with our exclusive link honeylove.com historytix. You can support our show and check them out [e-mail] history tics.

[Susan]

But it doesn't stop there. Honey Love has more than just sculpt wear. They have incredibly comfortable bodysuits and bras and tanks and leggings for everyday support.

[Becky]

So treat yourself to the best bras and shapewear on the market and save 20% [e-mail] Historychicks Use our exclusive link.

[Susan]

To get 20% off off Honey Love.com History Chicks. After your purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you.

[Becky]

So the bridge is up, the fireworks have gone off, and you would think we would be done. But immediately Mr. Roebling started getting proposals from other cities for new bridges. And Emily's like, look, I'll write the letters for you, but I am not getting involved. You know what I mean?

[Susan]

Yeah, but she did her time.

[Becky]

He took another job. He wrote to his son, your mother's furious with me because she knows it will kill me. Is that why she's mad, you think? I don't think that's why she's mad. She wrote, she wrote. I totally disapprove of his whole connection with the contract and the work, but I have requested him not to talk to me on the subject and I will keep my opinions to myself. I shall now feel free to do many things I have long wanted to do, as your father's plans will take him quite out of my world.

[Susan]

I kept thinking over and over again learning about her, what she could have done if she wasn't spending all of her energy on this project, which I'm not going to say it wasn't worthwhile, because it was. But, you know, what could she have done if she was left to her own, you know, drive? One of the things that she had been doing all these years is raising their son. And at this point, John was ready to go to college. And as if he had a choice. He's going to go to Rensselaer Polytech just like his dad did. And the family decided to move up to Troy, New York with him.

[Becky]

So that is the benefit of being an only child. Yes, everyone. Well, benefit, or as Jet would say, detriment. Like, all the attention is on you. Right? All parental care flows downhill. This boy had grown all the way up during the Brooklyn Bridge Project. We, Susan and I, are very, very familiar with that. We each have a son who started out at the beginning of our podcast, a very small, high pitched kindergarten person who now are fully grown adult men.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

At least on the outside. So she had one, too. She had one, too. They Moved to Troy. And she discovered, because we cannot catch a break, she discovered that she had something else, another giant project to worry about. Her son has a heart condition, and he had had since he was born. It's one of those things like, you know, those athletes, the high school and college athletes discover only too late, while strenuously exercising themselves that they have a congenital heart defect. Well, that's what happened to her son. So she was filled with worry and trepidation about him and his health. Once her son graduated with the inevitable degree in engineering, but also a focus in chemistry, he married at a very young age. And not only that, the new couple had to move to the dry climate of Arizona for her new daughter in law's health. It's probable that the daughter in law had tuberculosis. And of course, a change of climate was most often recommended for such a condition. So her only real care is now in the hands of someone else. And far away geographically, she is now free to pursue her own interests in a way that she hasn't ever since she got married.

[Susan]

Really, one of those things that she was doing was designing a new house in Trenton, New Jersey. It was a, quote, commodious mansion in the Tudor style. So it's a big house up on a hill sloping down towards the Delaware River. In the front of this house on the street side, there was a stained glass depiction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a whole mural with boats sailing underneath and clouds and a beautiful day as a stained glass piece. So that's just one decorative element in this house. There was so many more. It was. It was as if all of a sudden she had all this creative energy and nowhere to direct it. So she directed it towards this house first.

[Becky]

In addition, she joined, over the next few years, a number of women's organizations. I have to say that she was sort of tired of being the only. Not to put too light, you know, Barbie girl. In a Barbie world, like in a man's world, she was the only lady. And now she decided to join the society of intelligent women. And therefore she joined the curiously named National Society for the Colonial Dames of America. Yes, the George Washington Memorial Organization, the D are Cirrhosis, which is actually a women's group born out of, I wouldn't say spite, I would say irritation. Charles Dickens had come to town and the women were forbidden from coming to hear him speak. And so they created a parallel, similarly highly regarded literary and debate society. The same thing happened in Kansas City. The country club here, the Men's Business club, didn't allow Women. And so when the prominent speakers came to town, no businesswomen could hear him. And they literally started their own organization downtown, which was active and is still active, but not in the same location since the 1930s. So that happened all over the country. And they were also part of Cirrhosis. But she was a very sought after member of that group. She also joined the Federation of women's.

[Susan]

Clubs and as a member of the New Jersey chapter. Do we have to battle over who gets to say this? As a member of the New Jersey chapter, she helped work on a display that was going to be in the women's pavilion at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

[Becky]

She was the secretary treasurer of the New Jersey board of lady managers. She also was the chair of statistics for New Jersey for that exhibit. She was in charge of determining how many women were working in the state of New Jersey outside the home. Any patents they held, any inventions that was all hers. She said, it troubled me to leave the colonel half sick and alone in Trenton, and I did not want to leave the house. But I've worked hard for my present position in the world of women, and this is the place to be this year if I want to hold onto it.

[Susan]

Amen.

[Becky]

While she was at the Colombian exhibition, she was recognized by a friend, French duchess named TBD. Congratulations on all your work as an engineer. And like, ooh. And then she kind of made light of it. It meant a lot to her, but she made a little light of it. Like, I bet she wouldn't say that about me being a linguist. Ah ha ha ha. You know.

[Susan]

Well, she had such a successful run there that in 1895, she got to do it all over again for the Atlanta World's Fair. So it was like back to back World's Fair.

[Becky]

I love it. So she took a trip to Europe, where she was presented to no less a luminary than Queen Victoria herself, I believe, based on an ever increasing knowledge of her involvement in the bridge project. She was so proud of the costume she wore that she actually visited the salon of a celebrated painter and had herself immortalized in that costume in a large scale portrait. That costume, in fact, in its entirety, is held in New York City by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including her shoes. And when it's on display, which it is not right now, they do display it with one glove removed, as one would appear when appearing in front of Queen Victoria, I guess, to shake her hand. I'm not really certain what the protocol is there, but they had it. That's how they present it. When they do, I wish we could go see it. I don't know.

[Susan]

I know. I thought the same thing. It was like, oh, going to be right there. But we can walk across the bridge.

[Becky]

That's true. We can. We can walk across the bridge when we get to New York. As if that royalty wasn't enough, on she went to Moscow with a party of upper crust friends, including Bertha Palmer. She of the ultimate lady manager of the Colombian exposition, she of the Palmer House Hotel, the woman in charge of all the lady managers, and also an alum of Emily's school, by the way. And everyone's trying to figure out, how did this happen? What is going on? It seems to be that people think that Bertha Palmer's sister was married to a man who became an Austrian ambassador. And Bertha Palmer was actively campaigning to get her husband to be nominated as a diplomat in Germany. This was part of the strategy to go introduce him to some muckety mucks in Europe. And pretty much people hated him. And it was, whatever it was. Frillous endeavor. But neverthele. She and her party attended no less than the coronation of Tsar Nicholas ii. I mean, I know you can't just roll up, right?

[Susan]

No.

[Becky]

She had to get her invitation from somewhere. And everyone thinks it's Bertha Palmer's doing. And they get all this way and the door guy won't let you in. No, I don't think so. They actually had great seats and everything.

[Susan]

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to think about how that story ends.

[Becky]

Emily wrote back to her friends in the United States that the czar looked too frail for the responsibilities that lay ahead of him. And, oh, how prophetic she was. If you would like more details on that, you should listen to our Romanov Sisters episode. During the event, there was a tragedy outside. There were gifts being given out to the public. You know, you get a commemorative cup and a pretzel and gingerbread, a lot of carbs and a sausage for a little protein. There was some minor thing. So somebody in part of the crowd said, that cup's full of gold coins. So the cup became very important. Others said the gifts are running out. And so there was a stampede. There was a crowd control problem. And just, you know, you get a lot of people in a group and they act differently. 1389 people died in that stampede, and there were over 4000 wounded on that day. Emily had seen the effects of crowd panic before on a much smaller scale. And she commented on how that tragedy really touched her. She had a little bit of deja vu. This was much, much worse than the tragedy that had happened on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was needless, needless death. Upon her return, Emily made a lecture tour about her experiences in Russia. Now, over the course of the next few years, her speeches would morph from travelogues to a women's place in society, the responsibility of. Of well heeled ladies to take care of the less fortunate, fixing society's ills, that kind of thing. And she served as the vice president of the D. Now, something else she did. The Spanish American War began, and her son decided that it was his responsibility, military running strong in the family, to go fight in this war. She might not have been able to help her son directly, but what she did do is set up a. A camp for returning veterans of the Spanish American War. She paid for, provided cooks, cleaners, material, nurses. She went herself on goodwill adventures and won the acclaim of one Teddy Roosevelt.

[Susan]

I'm. I'm in astonishment in the amount of time that it took to build the Brooklyn Bridge. She is doing all of this other stuff that's, that's a lot of impact on people.

[Becky]

Right. Her husband mocked her. He mocked her involvement in all these organizations, which enrages me like I saved your freaking career and reputation and bridge and bacon, you know, so how about a little less about what value the things I'm interested in might be bringing to the world. I want to say, she wrote to her son, I am really discouraged with your father. I have made up my mind to let him alone for the future and not bother trying to get him out of trouble or out of bed.

[Susan]

And I think he was probably, you know, okay with that, I guess. I mean, he had his rocks, which I'm kind of making light of, but it was a very impressive mineral collection that now sits at the Smithsonian. So, you know, he had his own interests, which had nothing to do with hers. Yeah, it's very sad.

[Becky]

I just think there was unaddressed lingering resentment. And I don't think she did it for thanks exactly, but the fact that there was so much not thanks and also he mocked her for things, it just, it rubbed her the wrong way, I think. I think she felt belittled.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

And, you know, there's a contradiction. We just have to say it right now. So, number one, she left the Federation of Women's Clubs when the tide began to turn toward a support of racial equality and women's suffrage. She left, left the organization specifically for that. That's from her own pen. Simultaneously, however, she joined this NYU program like A legal course for women in business. It was a graduate level course, really. Not meant for women to practice law, but more for women who had cause via property or their own businesses to have recourse to the legal system. It was more like that. She did get a certificate from there. She didn't get a degree. They didn't offer undergrad degrees until 1914, so that's a bit away. But she did get a certificate. And during her graduation she read her thesis entitled A Wife's Difficulties. And it was a pretty controversial but well received essay about property rights of women and the historical dismissal of women's concerns. Women are the most protected class in law. I'm like, actually, it's. Fathers don't trust that their daughter's husbands are going to treat the property well. It has very little to do with the daughters themselves, you know?

[Susan]

Right, right.

[Becky]

And it was a long, long thing. And then when afterward a reporter came to her husband, Washington, eagerly anticipating a quote about his wife's spectacular speech. This is his response. This is the first time I've ever heard it, and I disagree with almost all of it. He couldn't have held it together. This was to a reporter.

[Susan]

Yeah, well, he had that problem too, back when she was trying to keep his job, you know, keep him as the chief engineer. Then the last round, he said stupid things to a reporter. And she had to do like all this spin control to get things turned around and in his favor. You know what? I would be really disappointed. Doesn't even kind of COVID it because she spent all those years doing all that work saying, oh, I'm just, you know, doing this for my husband. It's just she's behind the scenes. That's where she wanted to be. She didn't want to be acknowledged too much for what she was doing. She wanted her husband to have all the fame and glory. And then this is what he says.

[Becky]

So a couple of years after that, something very visible but ultimately kind of minor like the public was concernicus went wrong with the Brooklyn Bridge. Just a little wear and tear. Something maybe hadn't been engineered properly enough. They had to put in some protective coverings. The public and the bridge company wanted the original designer back to handle the situation for, you know, that's the best thing for pr. Oh, we've got the original guy back on task. And Emily was sad and said, I'm so sorry, I. I can't go with you. I don't. I don't feel very good. And the conversation went. They mean me, said he, I know Dang. Yeah, I know they mean you. I'm just sorry I can't go with you because I don't feel good.

[Susan]

And she wrote to her son and she said, I have more brains, common sense and know how generally than any two engineers years, civil or uncivil that I have ever met. But for me, the Brooklyn Bridge would have never had the name Roebling connected with it. And in addition to all of that, she took a journal from someone from Cold Spring and turned it into a book about Cold Spring that was published in 1901. So she wrote a book too. No big deal.

[Becky]

I know. Sometimes you feel like, am I even doing anything? I changed out the laundry.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

Today.

[Susan]

Right, right. And meanwhile, you know, he's collecting rocks, he's rereading because he had read it before a six volume set on Frederick the Great. So that's telling you where his mind is at. You know, sometimes you're influenced by what you're reading or watching a little bit.

[Becky]

We last saw Frederick the Great in our last podcast.

[Susan]

I know, that's why I thought it was him. Yeah.

[Becky]

And you know, we always tell the story from the perspective of the person we're covering. And so in Maria Theresa's story, Frederick the Great was an ogre and a beast and a horrible man. But perhaps if you were in his own orbit telling his story, you would think he was a military genius.

[Susan]

Yeah. And he did a lot for his country.

[Becky]

Yeah.

[Susan]

I mean a lot of progressive things. Yeah. I think we gave him a little credit for those.

[Becky]

Yeah. He wasn't, he wasn't necessarily that, how do we say, au fait with women being in power, which seems to be be about where Mr. Roebling is about this time. H. Well, Emily's health unfortunately continued to decline from her stomach pains of 1901. Over the next few years, she just got worse and worse. And Emily roebling died on February 28, 1903, likely from stomach cancer. She was only 59.

[Susan]

She's buried in the family plot in Cold Spring, New York.

[Becky]

Work in addition to her name and dates. On her grave are stamped the words gifted, noble and true. I will say that Washington's grave is right beside hers. They are a complimentary if not exactly matched set. They are very, very beautiful and a little bit set apart. He remarried, but not until five years after her death. Meanwhile, worked on the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. And he had to take over the wire company after a rel. Died on the Titanic.

[Susan]

His namesake nephew died on the Titanic. So Washington Roebling is On the list of Titanic victims. The name.

[Becky]

Yeah, but do not, do not be tricked. No, it was not the one we've been speaking about. In 1926, his second wife, whose name is Cornelia, chose or was asked to bury her husband, Washington, beside Emily in Cold Spring. She herself lived 20 more years and is herself buried in South Carolina. But the original two Roeblings, Mr. And Mrs. Are buried together.

[Susan]

Well, the second wife was significantly younger than Washington was. She was closer in age to Washington's son than she was to Washington.

[Becky]

That's a Gilded Age phenomenon. Oh, Bertha Palmer's husband herself. Gosh. I mean, I want to say he was 20 years older than she.

[Susan]

Maybe. Is it really just a Gilded Age thing, though, Beckett?

[Becky]

No, it's a historically accurate thing.

[Susan]

Yep. Yep.

[Becky]

It used to be the ideal age was half the man's age plus seven years. So as the man gets older, the distance becomes a little more cocky maybe, doesn't it? It sure does. So on the original plaque on the bridge, there was no mention of Emily Roebling, only of John and of Washington. But in 1951, there is a new plaque that was established on the bridge. I want to read you what it says. There is a relief sculpture of the bridge and it says, the builders of the bridge, dedicated to the memory of Emily Warren Roebling. Her dates, whose faith and courage helped her stricken husband, Colonel Washington Roebling, complete the construction of this bridge from the plans of his father, John Roebling, who gave his life to the bridge. In back of every great work we can find the self sacrificing devotion of a woman. I mean, that's clearly centering Emily Robling at the center of the whole thing. Her name is first, the quote about her as at the end. That was clearly an homage to Emily and I'm very grateful that she got it. I will tell you. She intended to put portraits of her father in law and husband on the bridge. And guess who blocked that in the first place? The Mayor of Brooklyn.

[Susan]

Of course he did.

[Becky]

But Brooklyn came around.

[Susan]

It's come around in 2018, where their house stood. It's no longer there. That house that had the view of the bridge, it's no longer there. But in 2018, the corner of Columbia Heights and Orange street in Brooklyn was renamed Emily Roebling Way.

[Becky]

There is a Roebling street in Brooklyn. Brooklyn that was actually named for Grandpa John. Yeah, and so was the playground. But in 2022, PS8 in Brooklyn, a K through 5 elementary school on Hicks street, just doors away from the original house they lived in at 59 Hicks street was renamed the Emily Warren Roebling School.

[Susan]

In 2018, the New York Times began a series of obituaries of people who had passed away many years ago and never got one. It is mostly women that had been given this honor. And Emily Roebling is one of those. We'll link you up to it. It's just. I don't want to say it's a fun read, but it's nice to see these people getting credit for the impacts that their lives had.

[Becky]

As a little side note, her son went on to become a noted philanthropist. Her grandson invented a tracked vehicle that he intended for use to save hurricane victims, but ultimately helped the United States and allies win World War II. And that'll bring us to the end of the story of Emily Roebling, her involvement with the Brooklyn Bridge and the rest of her life. And now it's time for media. And as usual, we are going to start with books and the big ones. The big one, not specifically about Emily, as a matter of fact, is called the Great Bridge, the Epic story of the Building of the Brooklyn bridge by David McCullough.

[Susan]

It is so detailed. He dove down all the rabbit holes. And I thought it was really readable. Like a lot of times when you get that many details in a book, your eyes kind of glaze over. This, they didn't. There's my very good thumbs up from Susan. My eyes didn't glaze over.

[Becky]

You're really selling it, Susan. You're really selling it.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

More directly related to Emily herself is a book called Silent Emily Warren Roebling and the Brooklyn Bridge by Marilyn Weigold. This actually is written from a perspective of someone that's on Emily's side and I really appreciated that.

[Susan]

Yeah. And it's also gone through three editions, the most recent being 2023. So it's current, you know. You know, it's history, but that doesn't mean it can't change. Right? So.

[Becky]

Right.

[Susan]

Yeah. That's what I liked about that. Another book that I found not only helpful, but it's. I'm gonna keep it. I had to buy it. In the Shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and its Photographs and text by Barbara G. Mensch. And it's kind of a grown up photography picture book. It's part memoir of her following the path of the Roeblings and the bridge. So she goes to Germany, she goes anywhere she can. That had to do with the building of the bridge, you know, and she takes photographs of it. So there's a lot of abandoned places, which I find pretty interesting.

[Becky]

Another book that I think, if you're interested in Mr. Roebling himself and more, I guess, behind the scenes political details of the bridge. A book called Chief Engineer Washington Roebling, the Man who Built the Brooklyn Bridge by Erica Wagner. I would read it. Not first. I just really felt like this one really downplayed Emily's contribution or sidelined her a little more than the others. And. And you know what? As a matter of keeping balance, you probably should read both of them.

[Susan]

Yeah.

[Becky]

So anyway, very good. I've got many pages turned down. You know why? Because I own it and is my book. And also. Would you like. Okay, grab your pearls. I have written in this. So there you go. You ever find a book in a used bookstore that has writing in it? It's someone like me.

[Susan]

I actually did that with one of mine, the Silent Builder. And a friend of ours, Laura, had said she likes Emily Roebling. So I'm going to send it to her so she'll run across my writing in that book.

[Becky]

You should put a little secret note, just like tuck it in somewhere.

[Susan]

Yeah, I should.

[Becky]

So I am going to tell you about a book that I think is so cool for grownups and middle grade Alex. Like, it is a graphic novel called the Bridge how the Roeblings Connected Brooklyn to New York. It is a graphic novel. Many, many, many pages. As a matter of fact, one of my son's favorite books when he was growing up was a graphic novel, novel rendition of the Swiss Family Robinson. And it reminds me so much of this. A lot is made of the arguments between Washington and his father, like the way his father raised him. So there's a lot of that in there. It's pretty cool. I really like it.

[Susan]

No, I don't disagree. As a matter of fact, I have all these stars over it, around it on my paper. I consider that a graphic nonfiction. And I just love that there's more and more of those coming out. We've used them before. I think I got through Northanger Abbey because of a graphic novel.

[Becky]

I mean, one of my favorite little quotes is all the visitors are coming to go in the airlock. And they finally get downstairs. And he goes, welcome to hell, boyos. Like, that's amazing. I love it. So not only that, but there are some great children's books available for this subject too.

[Susan]

One of the two that I like the best. And I'm only gonna give this one How Emily Saved the the Story of Emily Roebling and the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by Frieda Waschinski and Natalie Nelson. There is a lot of words. It's not a little. Little kids book. It's not a. It's a picture book, but. But it's for kids that can read alone. And I thought it explained a lot of things. You know, how does a caisson work?

[Becky]

Well, and I liked Secret Engineer, How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge by Rachel Dougherty. It's not talking down to you. It's a children's book, but it has a lot of information. I think sometimes people underestimate how much information a child can take in, even accidentally. So I really appreciated that book.

[Susan]

I often start with the children's book when it's a new subject. I mean, you know, nonfiction, of course.

[Becky]

Like these books.

[Susan]

I started with these books, I'm not gonna lie. Although I have to say I did know about her because I had read the Engineer's Wife by Tracy Anderson Wood, which is a historical fiction. It is not a biography. She takes a lot of liberties that she can take in the fiction world. Like a relationship between PT Barnum and Emily Roebling.

[Becky]

Nope, nope.

[Susan]

Historical fiction, right? Yeah.

[Becky]

So, yeah, that's out there.

[Susan]

Yeah. And I know that I read it because somebody in the lounge had recommended it, and I was like, oh, okay, it's on audiobook. I'll get it. There are some compilation books out there. Noisemakers, 25 women who raise Their Voices and Change the World. There's a variety of authors and illustrators. It's a graphic nonfiction compilation from Kazoo magazine. And it's just like a who's who of history chick subjects as far as I'm concerned. There's a lot of them. And another one that I liked was Women of steel and 22 inspirational architects, engineers and Landscape Designers by Anna M. Lewis. It's more of a middle grade book, but I like that one, too.

[Becky]

So as to movies, you know, we do have an Emily Roebling character featured in the season two of the Gilded Age. So hooray for Emily Roebling, the charact.

[Susan]

There is also a Ken Burns documentary called the Brooklyn Bridge. It's on prime. It costs two bucks. But for the confirmation screen that you get that says, buy the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought it was worth the amount that I paid for it. If you're wondering, like I did, where the phrase, if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, where did that come from? I can tell you that because I tumbled down a rabbit hole. There was a con man in the 1920s who had set up an elaborate. Now think of in the Gilded Age that Oscar Van Ryan storyline where he gets completely conned out of their entire fortune. It's an elaborate scam, you know, with offices and documentation and many people playing parts. This guy did the same thing and kept selling all kinds of national monuments. He sold the Statue of Liberty. He sold Madison Square Garden, the Met. He even sold Grant's tomb, pretending to be Grant's grandson. But he often sold the Brooklyn Bridge. There's some accounts that say at least twice a week.

[Becky]

Wow.

[Susan]

People would. I know. And people would get duped and they wouldn't find out until they go to put a toll booth on the bridge. So they start construction on this toll booth, and that's when they find out that they were duped out of all this money. He was eventually caught and sentenced to life in Sing Sing. There are a lot of things on the Web, we'll just link you up, but I would like to direct you to the Bowery Boys episodes on Brooklyn Heights.

[Becky]

So some of the links will link you to some knowledge about John Roebling scenes. Also the entire text of her essay. A wife's disabilities. It's really only three pages long. So easy to read online. The way they digitized it is pretty cute. It's basically the whole book that they laid flat and took photos of. And you could turn the pages also about her brother and his career. GK Warren. The construction of the Eids bridge. And also the Eids versus Robling feud, which covered some inches in newspapers of the day. Some historical buildings with caissons. They used caissons actually during the construction of the Paris Underground. At different points, too. Not that far under the earth, but nevertheless.

[Susan]

Do you know how close they were to coming to a cure for caissons? A preventative. The physician that was on the crew that worked on the bridge, he was very close to coming up with this idea that is actually being used now. And he presented it just as the bridge was starting to be completed. But it's technology that's being used now. It's a chamber that people that will suffer from the bends go lay in for several hours. I mean, he was so close to coming up with it and just not fast enough.

[Becky]

So we'll also link you to caisson sickness. And it's here. And also, just why not? About the coronation of Tsar Nicholas ii. Yes, we have a friend who was there.

[Susan]

I don't have anything else.

[Becky]

And in closing, Emily Robling was both a woman of her time and completely outside it. While endeavoring to keep her contributions behind the scenes. Like a proper Victorian, her audacity and abilities transcended what society considered proper into almost unfathomable feats of creativity, bravery, persuasion, and persistence. The city of New York would not be the same without her. Perhaps she is the bedrock upon which the Brooklyn Bridge stands, after all. Thanks for listening.

[Susan]

Bye.

[Becky]

If you liked what you heard today, you know the drill. Say it with me, tell a few friends, or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts. Hey, there are a couple places left for our upcoming dinner cruise on September 14th. If you are in Emily Robling's neighborhood up there in Brooklyn or in New York city, go to likemindstravel.com and under the Events tab go to the History Chicks New York City Dinner Cruise for more information on how you can join us. Special thanks to Chris Graham for his vocal stylings during the 32nd summary. I'm very tickled and and thank you for all of your support and love over the years. We just can't say it enough. Xoxo xo the song in the middle is by James Harper and the song at the end is Cool Kids by Natalie Walker. Particularly the line, you are the spark and I'm the gasoline. Plus, we and 50 listeners are about to be the Cool kids ourselves and go to the city in America. Matter of only a couple of weeks it seemed appropriate to choose for the end of this episode. See you next time.

[Susan]

So much a taste so come on.

[Becky]

Let'S take a bite no one to.

[Susan]

Say who we should or shouldn't be I'm the.

[Becky]

Work every day Just to.

[Susan]

Play on the weekend make that bread.

[Becky]

And spend it quickly Hunger Cool cool, cool Kids are lost with friends on.

[Susan]

A concrete playground Stars in our eyes.

[Becky]

Like when we were children.

[Susan]

Who'S that.

[Becky]

Boy with a zeppelin T shirt.

[Susan]

I'll shoot him a smile cause I've got that feeling.