The Bridge at Quebec (review)

The Bridge at Quebec. By William D. Middleton. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. ix+203. $39.95.

The late Mel Kranzberg enjoyed reminding people that "technology is a very human activity." What better example could anyone find of this great truth than the saga of the 1,800-foot cantilevered Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River, originally conceived in 1851 and yet not finally completed until 1918, following two dramatic accidents in 1907 and 1916 that killed seventy-five and eleven respectively? William Middleton, trained as a civil engineer but now writing transportation history, conducted a thorough search of the National Archives of Canada, the libraries of Laval and McGill Universities, and archives at the Smithsonian and Hagley museums to reconstruct this political and engineering account of a bridge that many wanted but no one seemed willing to fully fund.

To simplify a complex story, when the political wrangling came to an end in the early 1900s, the Quebec Bridge Company, the provincial government, the national government, and the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, all quietly agreed to build a cheap bridge--essentially a leaner version of the Firth of Forth span in Scotland. The lack of money manifested itself in many ways, including seriously undercompensating consulting engineer Theodore Cooper of New York who, arguably, returned the favor by spending as little time on the site as possible. It was also evident when the bridge company board made the decision to lengthen the channel span from 1,600 feet to 1,800 feet and hundreds of hand calculations were never recomputed. Alas, new specifications were submitted to all the appropriate parties, but the need for new hand calculations was simply ignored (a critical point that Middleton may have missed).

In addition to underfunding, there was considerable pressure to complete the job quickly, in part because the bridge had been promised to so many for so long, and in part because of the perceived political need to merge the bridge opening with the Quebec Tercentenary of 1908. Beyond this deadly combination of inadequate funds and haste, there was the problem of limited engineering knowledge in some phases of bridge design. The Quebec Bridge had been created primarily by noted bridge designer Gustav Lindenthal, Phoenix Bridge designer Peter Szlapka, and Theodore Cooper. After the 1907 disaster, the Canadian Royal Commission concluded that Szlapka's chords were poorly designed--and yet, admittedly, there was no machine or means to test them under compression. These limits to engineering know-how might have produced some sense of caution and humility, but apparently they did not. Cooper, for example, could never imagine anyone reviewing his work. He failed to see that being at the top of his profession did not guarantee infallibility.

In brief, all the ingredients for disaster were present in August 1907 as workers, led by French Canadians and Caughnawaga Mohawks, endeavored to complete the project. Throughout the month, engineers Ed Hoare and John Sterling Deans and bridge erectors Benjamin Yenser and Emphrain Kinloch had been seeing bent lower chords in the anchor arm, as did the workers, who grew skittish and worried. Alas, no one assumed the authority to halt the project and order everyone off the bridge. Late in the day on the 29th, the south arm, bearing eighty-three workers, collapsed into the St. Lawrence. Of the seventy-five who died, thirty-three were Caughnawagas. Let the record show that when the Royal Commission investigated it was not terribly harsh in dealing with anyone. Though the commissioners did place some blame on Cooper and Szlapka, they also understood that this had been a cheap undertaking, and that engineering expertise had been stretched beyond its limits.

The debris had to be cleared and the Quebec Bridge had to be erected once again. Design and construction this time was overseen by Polish-born and French-educated bridge designer Ralph Modjeski, who resolved to gather all his carbon and nickel steel from one source...