Description
Between 1841 and 1849, John A. Roebling and his neighbors produced more than 100 lengths of iron wire rope by hand in an open meadow on his farm at Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. The extraordinary success of some of these ropes led directly to the establishment of two wire rope factories and formed the starting point of the U.S. wire rope industry. This archival paper explains the circumstances leading up to the innovative effort and clarifies, for the first time, the iron wire sources, ropemaking techniques, customers and locations involved.
