The Brooklyn Bridge

Learning about the Brooklyn Bridge, We were given information about how the bridge was made and the involvement of the engineers in its construction. The first engineer was male, and upon his death his son continued the project, but under a lot of stress he relinquished a lot of his duties to his wife, Emily Warren Roebling. She slowly took over, first being a messenger of instruction from her husband who refused to leave the house, allowing her opinions to be respected by the crew until she began to take over the supervision of the construction herself.

The story of Emily Roebling is an early story of feminist power, a strong and decisive woman in the late 1800’s, creating one of the oldest and largest bridges still standing today. Her role in the bridge is recognized to a small degree; while she is recognized in some museums and on Wikipedia, the bridge itself holds a plaque made much after the bridges opening in 1883 that omits Emily’s name from the list of engineers which include her husband, Washington Roebling and his father John A. Roebling. In fact, she is not mentioned at all, reflecting the patriarchal ghosting of essential women existing before the suffrage. The work force of the day also made the construction team male, but the bridge has become genderless in its interaction with the public on a daily basis. It seems strange that a bridge that otherwise seems genderless is so phallocentric in its construction, from its engineers to its workers that now allows thousands of people to cross daily.

I am appalled by the fact that Emily has been left out of the plaque that tells the public of the construction of the bridge. Her contribution has been erased from the awareness of the people crossing the bridge stopping to read the history of the magnificent monument. These small details are the things that define patriarchal dominance, allowing the men to be remembered but the women to be forgotten. This trend is mimicked in art history textbooks, the men being remembered and recorded, while the women disappear in the shadows of the men of their time.