Bridged

Just finished watching part of PBS' American Experience program on the building of the Golden Gate bridge. There was a great quote from Kevin Starr, Historian of California:

Great works of art encode within themselves messages that are at once transcendent and enigmatic, mysterious. What does the Parthenon mean? What does Beethoven's Ninth mean? What does Hamlet mean? The Golden Gate Bridge means many things. It means the victory of San Francisco over its environment. It means San Francisco remains competitive. It means that people can cross the channel more easily. But it also means something else. It celebrates in a mysterious way man's creativity and the joy and wonder of being on this planet.

If you've ever seen the GGB, you know exactly what Starr means. There's something about its shape and color against the fog that makes you marvel, and keep looking.

One of the best parts of the site is a section about why there were so many big building projects during the 1930s (the GGB was finished in 1937). Historian Andrew J. Dunar says:

Well, actually, planning had begun on many of these projects before the 1930s, and some of this owes ironically to the vision of President Herbert Hoover. Historians now acknowledge his progressive inclinations, and his commitment to counter-cyclical planning and the belief that the nation ought to have a reservoir of big projects in the planning stages that could be executed when the time was right. Programs begun during the Hoover years, such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, were forerunners of the New Deal, and years later New Dealer Rexford Tugwell acknowledged that -- even though no one would say so at the time -- "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."

Hmm, maybe it's time to reconsider HH, who worked as an engineer. His official White House biography has lots of interesting details (hah, since it's from a government site I can copy it in its entirety and insert comments, it's in the public domain):

Son of a Quaker blacksmith [what?! it's already interesting], Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the Presidency an unparalleled reputation for public service as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian.

Born in an Iowa village in 1874, he grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891, graduating as a mining engineer. [Wow, he was in Stanford's first class]

He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to China, where he worked for a private corporation as China's leading engineer. [who says he was China's leading engineer?] In June 1900 the Boxer Rebellion caught the Hoovers in Tientsin. For almost a month the settlement was under heavy fire. While his wife worked in the hospitals, Hoover directed the building of barricades [wow!], and once risked his life rescuing Chinese children. [why not just rescuing children?}

One week before Hoover celebrated his 40th birthday in London, Germany declared war on France, and the American Consul General asked his help in getting stranded tourists home. In six weeks his committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United States. {Could've used him in New Orleans]. Next Hoover turned to a far more difficult task, to feed Belgium, which had been overrun by the German army.

After the United States entered the war, President Wilson appointed Hoover head of the Food Administration. He succeeded in cutting consumption of foods needed overseas and avoided rationing at home, yet kept the Allies fed.

After the Armistice, Hoover, a member of the Supreme Economic Council and head of the American Relief Administration, organized shipments of food for starving millions in central Europe. He extended aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921. When a critic inquired if he was not thus helping Bolshevism, Hoover retorted, "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" [good for HH!]

After capably serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. He said then: "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." [wow, what a great priority for a president to have] His election seemed to ensure prosperity. Yet within months the stock market crashed, and the Nation spiraled downward into depression. [Nation shouldn't be capitalized; what unlucky timing]

After the crash Hoover announced that while he would keep the Federal budget balanced, he would cut taxes and expand public works spending.

In 1931 repercussions from Europe deepened the crisis, even though the President presented to Congress a program asking for creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to aid business, additional help for farmers facing mortgage foreclosures, banking reform, a loan to states for feeding the unemployed, expansion of public works, and drastic governmental economy.

At the same time he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility. [uh, where did this come from? doesn't fit the facts or tone of the rest of the bio]

His opponents in Congress, who he felt were sabotaging his program for their own political gain, unfairly painted him as a callous and cruel President. Hoover became the scapegoat for the depression and was badly defeated in 1932. In the 1930's he became a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward statism. [hmm, did a conservative write this bio?]

In 1947 President Truman appointed Hoover to a commission, which elected him chairman, to reorganize the Executive Departments. He was appointed chairman of a similar commission by President Eisenhower in 1953. Many economies resulted from both commissions' recommendations. Over the years, Hoover wrote many articles and books, one of which he was working on when he died at 90 in New York City on October 20, 1964. [astonishing that the son of a Quaker blacksmith died in the modern era]

Going back to the bridge, the site has a poll asking people to rank six of the world's greatest bridges in the order they like. I've been to three of them--GGB, Mackinac Straits bridge, and the George Washington bridge. I'd rank them in that order.

Bridges are so photographable; here are some more.




Photo of Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach by Buck Cash.

Photo of Herbert Hoover aboard a ship on January 11, 1917 by unknown.

Photo of World's longest bridge, Akashi Kaikyo, linking Kobe and Awaji-shima by Bala Kattappuram.

Unattributed photo of Mackinac Straits bridge from Michigan Department of Transportation.

Photo of Millau Viaduct, designed by Norman Foster and spanning the river Tarn, by Jean-Philippe Arles/ Reuters.