Libraries:

Historic American Engineering Record, 800 N. Capitol St. NW, Washington, DC 20002
www.cr.nps.gov/habshaer

The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and its sister agency the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) are part of the National Park Service. HAER documents significant industrial and engineering sites throughout the United States, including important civil engineering features, like bridges, dams, canals, railroad facilities, harbor installations, and municipal infrastructure. Documentation prepared by HAER includes narrative histories, large-format photographs, and drawings (both historic drawings and present-day measured drawings completed as part of the documentation). HAER houses its documents at the Library of Congress (see other listing), which makes them available to researchers.

The Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108
www.huntington.org 626-405-2100

The Huntington Library has an extensive rare book collection and rich archival and manuscript collections pertaining to the history of California and the American West. In 1994, the Huntington established its Fund for the Heritage of Civil Engineering to enable the library to collect, preserve, and make available to researchers books, photographs, drawing, manuscripts, and other research materials pertinent to the history of Civil Engineering. Researchers should contact and register with the Huntington prior to arriving to use materials.

Library of Congress, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC 20540
www.loc.gov

The Library of Congress occupies three large buildings just east of the United States Capitol. Initially comprised of Thomas Jefferson's library, the Library of Congress has grown to encompass a vast collection of information that it makes available to the nation's citizens both in print at the Library and on-line. The two collections of greatest interest to those interested in the history of civil engineering are the Science Reading Room and the HABS/HAER collections (see other listing for Historic American Engineering Record). The Science Reading Room is located in the John Adams Building (2nd Street & Independence Avenue, SE) and makes available an extensive collection of books, periodicals, reference materials, and other documents concerning engineering in both print and electronic formats.

The HABS/HAER collections document more than 37,000 historic structures and sites in the United States, including numerous civil engineering features in every state. The collections, titled "Built in America," are available on-line at the American Memory page of the Library of Congress web site: www.loc.gov/ammem/hhhtml/hhhome.html

Linda Hall Library, 5109 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO 64110-2498
www.lhl.lib.mo.us

The Linda Hall Library has a large History of Science Collection, which includes rare books as well as the libraries of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (purchased in 1947) and the Engineering Societies (transferred to Linda Hall in 1995). The ASCE is one of the founding societies of the Engineering Societies. The Linda Hall Library does not collect archival and manuscript materials.

Centuries of Civil Engineering
www.lindahall.org/pubserv/hos/civil/

This exhibition of rare books is presented in honor of the American Society of Civil Engineers' 150th Anniversary, 1852 - 2002. It celebrates the rich heritage and accomplishments of civil engineers, and the association of the ASCE with the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology.

National Archives, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD.
www.nara.gov

This branch of the federal government houses historic documents pertaining to all aspects of our government's history, including those agencies that have made important contributions to the history of civil engineering, like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The main research center for the National Archives is now located in College Park, Maryland. It is a vast building with extensive resources, facilities, and aids for researchers. It houses collections from offices of agencies located in the Nation's Capitol. Because federal agencies have offices throughout the country, the National Archives also has regional branches, and they will often be of greater interest for researchers working on the history of local projects. For example, because the Bureau of Reclamation has its major national offices in Denver, the Denver branch of the National Archives has an extensive collection of engineering documents pertaining to many of the big dams in the West.

University Libraries: Any university with a College of Engineering will have an extensive engineering library, and universities with a civil engineering department will have extensive collections of books, periodicals, and other technical documents pertaining to civil engineering. These will typically be the best library source in a particular region for historical materials concerning the history of civil engineering.

Printed Material

Bibliographies: Bibliographies appear in most published histories, but they usually pertain to the specific subject of the publication. The most recent bibliography covering the entire history of civil engineering is Darwin Stapleton, The History of Civil Engineering Since 1600: An Annotated Bibliography (New York & London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1986). It lists works according to broad chronological categories: Background and General Works on Civil Engineering; Renaissance, 1600-1750; Industrial Revolution, 1750-1830; Victorian Era and Second Industrial Revolution, 1830-1900; Modern Era, 1900-1950; and Recent (since 1950). Within each category, there are individual sections on specific topics in civil engineering, like surveying, dams, bridges, power, and city planning.

Ancient and Medieval Histories: Throughout this century, authors have written histories of civil engineering in ancient time, long before it was recognized as a profession. Recent efforts place engineering history in a world context rather than focusing exclusively on Europe and North America. They are nicely illustrated and intended for the interested public.

Ervan Garrison, A History of Engineering and Technology: Artful Methods (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1999).

Donald Hill, A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times (London & New York: Routledge, 1996 reprint of the 1984 edition).

John Rae and Rudi Volti, The Engineer in History (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 1993).

Scholarly Treatments of Civil Engineering: Historians of technology often develop a hypothesis to explain a particular historical development and then seek to demonstrate the veracity of the hypothesis by narrating a very specific episode in history. Even if the episode is of interest to a reader, the academic prose may be daunting. Not all scholarly treatments are off-putting, however. The two listed below are fine examples:

Donald C. Jackson, Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995). This is the story of Eastwood and his development of the multiple-arch concrete dam. It includes excellent overviews of the history of dam engineering and of the importance of water in the American West. The book is also abundantly illustrated with historic photographs.

Tom F. Peters, Building the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996). This book explores the developments of British, European, and American engineers' ideas about how to design and build large-scale projects in the nineteenth century, culminating in the construction of the Panama Canal in the early twentieth century. The book is richly illustrated with photos and an especially stunning array of line-drawings.

Coffee Table Books: Not all coffee table books limit themselves to pretty pictures. The two listed here have illustrations accompanied by excellent text.

National Geographic Society, The Builders: Marvels of Engineering (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1992). This book contains wonderful color photographs of some of the world's most magnificent engineering accomplishments, accompanied by excellent drawings and diagrams and succinct text.

Daniel L. Schodek, Landmarks in American Civil Engineering (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). This book has more extensive text than most such books. It provides an historical overview of each of the structures designated by the ASCE as a Civil Engineering Landmark. Yet it is also well illustrated with historic photographs of those structures.

Technical Literature: The engineering profession is well aware of its own history and its responsibility to document that history. In recognition of that fact, one of the profession's leading journals, Engineering News-Record, devotes one or more special issues to the subject of the profession's heritage every 25 years. The 75th Anniversary issue, for example, was published on September 1, 1949 (volume 143 of the journal). It includes an almanac of memorable events in each of civil engineering's sub-fields, including sewage disposal, water supply, bridges, dams, and building construction. In 1999, when Engineering News-Record celebrated its 125th anniversary, it published several special issues in volume 243 covering historical topics. Portions can be visited online at www.enr.com/new/125hist.asp.