A Summary of the Strengths of the Huntington's Civil Engineering Materials
Early printed books
The Library has one of the great collections of early European printed books in the United States. This collection includes classical works, which provide us with information on building and engineering work undertaken by the Greeks and Romans. Two of the most informative commentators are Pliny and Vitruvius, whose early imprints appear in many editions in the Huntington. Of equal interest are the seminal publications related to the 15th- and 16th-century Renaissance and the emergence of new ideas in engineering and technology. These are a few of the landmark books in the Library:
Roberto Valturio, De re militari, Verona, 1472, the first printed book dealing with military armaments and construction. Augustino Ramelli, Le diverse et artificiose machine, Paris, 1588, a highly-illustrated work by an engineer to the kings of France and Poland detailing pump design, mill construction, hydraulic machinery, etc. Georgicus Agricola, De re metallica, Basel, 1556, the first work on mining which surveys the methods and machinery of the period. Domenico Fontana, Della trasportatione dell'oblelisco, Rome, 1590, an account and demonstration of one of the major engineering feats of the 16th century, the movement of an immense obelisk.
This collection includes many other significant works in the history of engineering, particularly civil engineering. It is valuable not only for its research value, but because the books can be magnificently displayed as artifacts depicting the growth and technological development of Western Civilization.
Early English and American surveying books
The Library's early English book collection includes most of the key initial works dealing with land surveying and surveyors' practices. Researchers interested in the history of the art are well aware of the collection, and we occasionally have professional surveyors who come to examine the books. They are particularly relevant to the Huntington because they document how the British oversaw and managed their own lands and those of the ever-expanding American colonies. These are several examples: Leonard Digges, A geometrical and practical treatise named pantometria, 1591. Henry Briggs, Logarithmicall arithmetike, 1631. John Norden, The surveyors dialogue, 1607. John Napier, Mirifici logarithmus, 1607.
18th-19th-century American and English engineering materials
The engineering advancements in this period played no small part in propelling the Industrial Revolution. John Smeaton (1724-1792), the first to call himself a civil engineer, and others led the way with the rebuilding and construction of British and American transportation systems--roads, canals, tunnels, harbors, bridges, etc.--and the redesign of more efficient hydraulic/steam power systems. The Huntington's collection is rich but spotty. We have a good collection of Smeaton's publications and a variety of materials related to fen drainage, canal companies, sanitation, bridge building, city planning, and other fields where civil engineering has played a big part. Huntington printed engineering materials in this period deal less with the technological advancement of civil engineering and more with its social and economic impact. This area of collecting is one we would hope to greatly expand once we have a firm hold on its strengths and weaknesses.
Maritime technology and engineering
In 1986 Professor John Haskell Kemble of Pomona College gave to the Huntington one of the great private collections related to maritime history including ship design and construction. The Kemble Collection has, for example, original 19th-century ship engineering drawings, coastal surveys, publications of the shipbuilding industry, many books dealing with the world's harbors, and technical studies on ship construction. Professor Kemble died in 1990, and in his estate he provided for funds to acquire books to supplement his collection and to bring scholars to the Huntington. We are still in the process of cataloging his collection. The first Kemble Lecture dedicated to maritime history was given in November 1993.
19th-20th century railroad books and records
This is one of the areas where the Library holds major collections that are frequently consulted. Because of Henry E. Huntington's involvement in the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway system we have his personal and business papers as well as P.E. engineering records, which recently were donated by the Southern Pacific Company. The engineering records include valuations, maps, bridge designs, and station drawings. The Southern Pacific also has given us the engineering files for its Southern District, which is a major source for the study of how railroad civil engineers from 1867 to 1940 built and transformed transportation in the American Southwest. The Library's printed collections and map files also document early railroads in Britain (1840-1870), eastern American railroads before the Civil War, the railroad in the American Civil War, the railroad surveys of the trans-Mississippi West, the building of the transcontinental routes, the selling of the American West to tourists and settlers, and the major railroads of California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Historical photograph collection
The Photo Archive at the Library contains approximately 250,000 prints and negatives which deal primarily with the history and growth of the American West with an emphasis on Southern California. The images are used for research by historians, in historical publications, and more frequently in documentary television and video tapes. Because the Archive concentrates on the settlement, building, and commercial growth of the West, many of the photographs visually chronicle the influence of civil engineering and important engineering projects in this region. The themes that are predominant in the history of the American West deal directly with engineering issues--transportation, mining, water and its transport, agriculture, and the growth of residential and manufacturing centers. These are well-documented in the Photo Archive.
California and the American West:
mining, geology, architecture, and civil engineering papers
For research potential in the field of civil engineering, the papers of engineers who worked in California and the West are the most significant of all the Huntington's engineering holdings. But there are other related collections that should be noted. Because of the influence of Rodman Paul of Caltech and probably President Herbert Hoover, who once sat on the Huntington's Board of Trustees, the Library can claim to be one of the largest depositories of materials related to mining and exploratory geology in the United States. For example, Professor Paul brought the papers of geologist James D. Hague to the Library. This collection included the notebooks of Clarence King, famed geologist and surveyor for the U.S. Geological Survey. In the Manuscripts Department are papers and records related to virtually every mining district in the West. In lesser number but still of no little importance are papers related to petroleum engineering and the oil industry. In 1978 at the prodding and with the guidance of the University of Southern California School of Architecture we began to collect papers and drawings of major Southern California architectural offices. Thus far we have saved the files of the office of Morgan, Walls, and Clements; Wallace Neff; Sam Lunden; James Dolena; and others. These archives have been consulted frequently by restoration architects, historians, and engineers building the Metro Rail. Despite the fact that the Huntington is not an engineering library it has accumulated an amazing selection of papers of influential engineers. The following list gives an idea of the breadth and scope of the Huntington's holdings. The list does not reflect one of the most fascinating civil engineering projects in the American West and that is the building of the Colorado River aqueducts, particularly the Colorado River--Los Angeles Gravity Flow Aqueduct. This project is documented is the Papers of Senator Albert Fall, the professional papers of hydraulic engineer Eugene Clyde LaRue, and in the extensive files of Otis Marston.
A SAMPLE OF MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS AT THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY DEALING WITH CIVIL ENGINEERING AND RELATED FIELDS:
JOHN HENRY DOCKWEILER COLLECTION: Dockweiler (1864-1930<), a civil engineer, was employed in the office of Los Angeles City Surveyor on railroad surveys from 1880 to 1887. He served as Los Angeles City Engineer for three terms (1891-1899) and in this position was instrumental in the development of the Los Angeles water-supply system. From 1899 to 1904 Dockweiler was a consultant in engineering, water projects, and the investigation of Western mining properties. From 1904 to 1916 he was a consulting engineer for the cities of San Francisco and Oakland but by 1925 had returned to Southern California and continued consulting on irrigation and other engineering projects.
ALBERT BACON FALL COLLECTION: Fall (1861-1944) was a senator from New Mexico (1912-1921) and secretary of the interior (1921-1923) under President Harding. As secretary of the interior, Fall concentrated his efforts on problems relating to the development of the nation's resources. Important issues included the building of Boulder Dam and various reclamation projects (including the Colorado River Project and Elephant Butte Dam).
REGINALDO FRANCISCO DEL VALLE COLLECTION: Valle (1854-1938), a legislator and civic leader, was a director of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (1927-1929). The collection contains materials relating to California water resources, the Owens Valley, and the St. Francis Dam disaster.
FRANK HINCKLEY COLLECTION: Hinckley (1838-1890) became a civil engineer for the government in San Francisco in 1863. He worked as a surveyor for the Western Pacific Railroad in and around the Bay Area until 1872.
MILO HOADLEY COLLECTION: Hoadley (1809-1887) served as assistant and deputy county surveyor and was elected state surveyor general in 1851. Hoadley was involved in negotiations for the water supply of the city of San Francisco, served as president of the San Francisco City Board of Civil Engineers (1862-1863), and later practiced privately as a civil engineer.
EUGENE CLYDE LARUE COLLECTION: LaRue (1879-1947) was employed by the U.S. Geological Survey making field examinations for power sites and reporting on irrigation projects, first as district engineer for the Great Basin District headquartered in Salt Lake City (1907-1911), and then in the Water Resources Branch (1911-1927). After this time LaRue entered a private civil engineering partnership in Los Angeles. Some of the projects in which he was involved include the Colorado River-Los Angeles Gravity Flow Aqueduct, the Klamath Lake Project in Oregon, the Merced Irrigation District in California, and the San Juan River, Little Colorado, and Verde Projects in Arizona.
WILLIAM MOORE COLLECTION: Moore (1827-1891<), Los Angeles surveyor, worked for the Los Angeles city surveyor's office with George Hansen in the 1850s. Moore served as Los Angeles county surveyor and as Los Angeles city surveyor. Moore was given a contract in 1878 to build a tunnel in central Los Angeles to supply irrigation water (the tunnel was never built).
CHARLES F. AND ISAAC B. POTTER COLLECTION: The Potter brothers were lawyers with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Their clients included water and power companies in the southwestern U.S. The collection contains many engineering reports, agreements, and surveys for California, Nevada, and Arizona, mainly related to water and power.
RAILROAD (INTERNATIONAL) COLLECTION: This collection consists of material pertaining to various railroads, especially Australian and British. It includes material on the activities of the civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel from 1842 to 1851; the civil engineer Thomas Sopwith's work on railroads from about 1835 to about 1870; bridges and other structures planned for London and Birmingham Railway by the civil engineer Robert Stephenson; the building of a bridge over the Seine at Maisons for the Paris and Rouen Railway.
HENRY HARBISON SINCLAIR COLLECTION: Sinclair (d. 1914), a hydro-electrical engineer, was instrumental in the development of hydro-electric power in Southern California and helped organize the Redlands Electric Light and Power Company, which was franchised in 1892. He later became director of the California Power Company (formed to build an electric plant on the Kern River), general manager of the Edison Electric Company, and a director of the Southern California Edison Company and various other corporations.
SOLANO-REEVE COLLECTION: Alfred Solano became associated with George Hansen, assisting him in the making of surveys of various tracts in Los Angeles County and in other parts of Southern California. Hansen's records were left to Solano and form part of this collection.
NATHAN W. STOWELL COLLECTION: Stowell (flourished 1903-1906) was associated with the hydro-electrical engineer George Chaffey in land and water development in the Cucamonga area and in the Imperial Valley. Stowell was vice-president of the California Development Company and president of the Imperial Water Company Number 1 in 1902. Both companies were involved in the development of the Imperial Valley Irrigation Project.
GEORGE CLINTON WARD COLLECTION: Ward (1863-1933) began his career in railroad engineering and in 1905 became general manager for the Huntington Land and Improvement Company and then for the Pacific Light and Power Company, where he was in charge of the Big Creek hydro-electric generating project. He was made vice-president of the Southern California Edison Company in 1917 and president in 1932.
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