Collection Scope and Content Note

Consists mainly of letters (194 items) and drawings (ca. 150) sent to Theodore Cooper, giving him information for the important paper on American railroad bridges which he published in Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1889. Also contains notes, sketches, and a few photographs. Drawings are mainly prints and blueprints of railroad bridges, including ones designed by Theodore Burr, Timothy Palmer, Lewis Wernwag, and Albert H. Fink. Correspondents include the American Society of Civil Engineers; D.M. Stauffer, editor of Engineering News magazine; H. Bissell, chief engineer, Boston and Maine Rail Road; A.J. Swift, chief engineer, Delaware & Hudson Canal Company; Palmer C. Ricketts, director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and T.R. Lawson, his assistant; Henry McCormick Jr., president of Harrisburg Bridge Company; and the Lehigh Valley Rail Road Company. The collection includes several items about the work of Theodore Burr and Timothy Palmer, earlier civil engineers who had each designed a number of railroad bridges.