UTA August 2010 Technological Revolution: Engineers

Crucial to the process of advancement were Engineers, who mastered the technical aspects of construction and design. Many American engineers were trained in Germany, but others attended such schools as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or Cornell University, in New York State.

Engineers used a technical process to facilitated the manufacture and marketing of foods and other consumer good. Distributors developed pressure-sealed cans, which enabled them to market agricultural products all over the country. Other innovative techniques were sheet metal, stamping, and electric resistance welding. By 1880, 90 percent of American steel was made by the Bessemer process, which injected air into molten iron to create steel.

Engineers also designed the bicycle (wheels of equal size) they used the American system to make their product affordable to almost anyone who wanted one. This resulted in the new form of transportation and recreation, one that could be enjoyed by both men and women. Later the production techniques that were used to build the bicycle, were also used to build the automobile.

Agriculture business also benefited from engineering innovations as well. Such as the modern irrigation system which was constructed by Native Americans and Mestizos. Than In 1870s Japan began importing American farm implements and inviting US Engineers to construct dams and canals for new steam and water powered gristmills and sawmills. Pg. 390 Pearson Etext.
William LeBaron Jenney. He designed the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the world’s first metal frame skyscraper. The steel skeleton weighed only one third as much as the thick stone walls needed to support a similar masonry building, and the design left room for numerous windows. Urban architecture would never be the same again. Pg. 397 Pearson Etext

William LeBaron Jenney, was born in Fairhaven, Mass in 1832. He served as an engineer officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He trained Louis Sullivan, William Holabird, Martin Roche, and Daniel Burnham.

Louis Sullivan, Was born in Boston in 1856. He is regarded as the spiritual father of modern American Architecture. He studied for a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s architectural program, the first in the nation,. He dropped out to practice architecture, he worked with Frank Furness and then with William LeBaron Jenney in Chicago. He felt that he needed more education, he spent another year at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1874. When he returned to America in 1879 he joined Dankmar Adler’s firm in 1879 and two years later he became full partner in Adler and Sullivan. After the Great Fire of 1871 building had been booming.

Louis Sullivan more than 100 works in collaboration with Dankmar Adler include the Auditorium Building, The Guaranty Building, in Buffalo, New York and Wainwright building, in St. Louis Missouri.