James B. Eads

by Louis How

Downloads: Under 100
Pages: 47

Read PDF online Download Save

Listen to James B. Eads Audiobook Free

Read by Barry Eads · 2 h 7 min · 5 parts

Open the player

Chapter 1 - Early Training
22:12
Chapter 2 - The Gunboats
28:09
Chapter 3 - The Bridge
28:00
Chapter 4 - The Jetties
31:55
Chapter 5 - The Ship-Railway
17:02

James B. Eads (1900) is a public domain work.

The audio edition streams in the page. There is no audio file to download.

Browse all free audiobooks

About this book

A boy's fascination with a steamboat engine opens Louis How's account of James Buchanan Eads, whose working life became closely tied to the Mississippi River. The early chapters follow his experiments with small machines, his family's difficult arrival in Saint Louis and the work that helped him support them. Access to an employer's library allows him to study engineering after his formal schooling ends.

Published in 1900, the biography connects this practical education with projects involving gunboats, a bridge, jetties and a proposed ship railway. The bridge section explains why Eads wanted foundations on bedrock and chose long steel arches to limit the number of costly piers. How also describes opposition to the plans, tests of materials and the contribution of trained assistants. For readers interested in engineering history, the book shows how observation of a changing river could guide technical decisions, while placing those decisions within the daily pressures of a working life.