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Tom Paine's Iron Bridge: Building a United States
The little-known story of the architectural project that lay at the heart of Tom Paine’s political blueprint for the United States.
In a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams judged the author of Common Sense as having “a better hand at pulling down than building.” Adams’s dismissive remark has helped shape the prevailing view of Tom Paine ever since. But, as Edward G. Gray shows in this fresh, illuminating work, Paine was a builder. He had a clear vision of success for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent a decade an iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.
When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as America’s largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the city’s continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvania’s backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was Paine’s solution.
The bridge was part of Paine’s answer to the central political challenge of the new how to sustain a republic as large and as geographically fragmented as the United States. The iron construction was Paine’s brilliant response to the age-old challenge of bridge how to build a structure strong enough to withstand the constant battering of water, ice, and wind.
The convergence of political and technological design in Paine’s plan was Enlightenment genius. And Paine drew other giants of the period as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and for a time his great ideological opponent, Edmund Burke. Paine’s dream ultimately was a casualty of the vicious political crosscurrents of revolution and the American penchant for bridges of cheap, plentiful wood. But his innovative iron design became the model for bridge construction in Britain as it led the world into the industrial revolution.
In a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams judged the author of Common Sense as having “a better hand at pulling down than building.” Adams’s dismissive remark has helped shape the prevailing view of Tom Paine ever since. But, as Edward G. Gray shows in this fresh, illuminating work, Paine was a builder. He had a clear vision of success for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent a decade an iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.
When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as America’s largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the city’s continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvania’s backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was Paine’s solution.
The bridge was part of Paine’s answer to the central political challenge of the new how to sustain a republic as large and as geographically fragmented as the United States. The iron construction was Paine’s brilliant response to the age-old challenge of bridge how to build a structure strong enough to withstand the constant battering of water, ice, and wind.
The convergence of political and technological design in Paine’s plan was Enlightenment genius. And Paine drew other giants of the period as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and for a time his great ideological opponent, Edmund Burke. Paine’s dream ultimately was a casualty of the vicious political crosscurrents of revolution and the American penchant for bridges of cheap, plentiful wood. But his innovative iron design became the model for bridge construction in Britain as it led the world into the industrial revolution.
235 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 25, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 23, 2017
"I wonder why you never hear about Thomas Paine doing things after the revolution?"
"Oh. That's why."
"Oh. That's why."
December 8, 2023
Florida State University historian Edward G. Gray tells a seldom-told story about Tom Paine, the early American revolutionist (who tried to incite a similar revolution in Britain, and later became a citizen of the first French republic and was jailed under Robespierre), author of "Common Sense," "The Rights of Man," the notorious "Age of Reason" that made his name political poison, and other influential writings including the still-timely "Agrarian Justice."
Gray gives us a detailed account of the innovative work Paine did on bridge design. America was covered with old-growth forests and ample timber for building bridges, but wooden bridges were notoriously vulnerable. Paine imagined a permanent single-arch bridge constructed of iron, and as he traveled to Britain and France and back to America again, he sought the input of trained builders and potential investors wherever he went. His designs earned the admiration of many before his reputation sank, and several important bridges seem to have been inspired by his model of a pre-fabricated design that could be shipped and assembled on site, making architecture and engineering exportable commodities.
It is a welcome story coming at a time when the United States is learning painful lessons about the importance of infrastructure to domestic economy - or, if investment in maintenance and replacement is the measure, perhaps we aren't learning from our bad roads, crumbling tunnels, collapsing bridges, corroded plumbing, and ramshackle ports of entry. When Philadelphia was still the major port city, but seeing competition from Baltimore and New York, Paine looked to the dangerous riverine barriers around them and saw permanent bridges as essential to a United States, economically and politically.
In architecture as with his writings, Paine was tragically loath to monetizing his efforts. He held a patent for his bridge design and sought compensation when others built bridges based on his concept, but Gray shows him repeatedly pulling his focus from bridges to politics, losing political support and networks of friends after the French Revolution and "The Age of Reason" (falsely portrayed in his time and even today as an atheist treatise), plus a harsh attack on George Washington that backfired on Paine.
Gray ends with an intriguing epilogue about corporations and public-private partnerships in the early United States, including some earnest debate about whether "perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the nature of a republican government," showing once more that the United States is still engaged in some of the same fundamental arguments from our early years.
Gray gives us a detailed account of the innovative work Paine did on bridge design. America was covered with old-growth forests and ample timber for building bridges, but wooden bridges were notoriously vulnerable. Paine imagined a permanent single-arch bridge constructed of iron, and as he traveled to Britain and France and back to America again, he sought the input of trained builders and potential investors wherever he went. His designs earned the admiration of many before his reputation sank, and several important bridges seem to have been inspired by his model of a pre-fabricated design that could be shipped and assembled on site, making architecture and engineering exportable commodities.
It is a welcome story coming at a time when the United States is learning painful lessons about the importance of infrastructure to domestic economy - or, if investment in maintenance and replacement is the measure, perhaps we aren't learning from our bad roads, crumbling tunnels, collapsing bridges, corroded plumbing, and ramshackle ports of entry. When Philadelphia was still the major port city, but seeing competition from Baltimore and New York, Paine looked to the dangerous riverine barriers around them and saw permanent bridges as essential to a United States, economically and politically.
In architecture as with his writings, Paine was tragically loath to monetizing his efforts. He held a patent for his bridge design and sought compensation when others built bridges based on his concept, but Gray shows him repeatedly pulling his focus from bridges to politics, losing political support and networks of friends after the French Revolution and "The Age of Reason" (falsely portrayed in his time and even today as an atheist treatise), plus a harsh attack on George Washington that backfired on Paine.
Gray ends with an intriguing epilogue about corporations and public-private partnerships in the early United States, including some earnest debate about whether "perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the nature of a republican government," showing once more that the United States is still engaged in some of the same fundamental arguments from our early years.
August 6, 2017
I heard the author provide an overview. He failed to talk about the most interesting facts that dealt with Paine's part in the French revolution and his imprisonment by the revolutionary government.
July 7, 2018
I now know a lot more about Thomas Paine than I learned in school. He's an interesting figure, critical to the creation of the United States. I didn't know he had another serious interest - architecture, and in particular bridges. In these modern times, it's difficult to think of the world without the bridges we take for granted today. The author does a pretty good job of drawing a connection between freedom from Great Britain and the importance of freedom of travel. Along the way we learn about the rise and fall of Thomas Paine. Mistakes were made. I enjoyed the back story on this important figure in American history, though the middle of the book was a little dry. My biggest complaint is the lack of illustrations in context. There is an illustrations section at the end but it's difficult to go there, find the right one, and then navigate back in the ebook. Why not insert the illustrations where they're discussed? I found myself using Google to see these bridges, the detailed text descriptions of which weren't enough for my brain to draw.
February 6, 2019
This is a highly readable account of the eventful life of Tom Paine, who managed to be involved in the tumult of the last 30 years of the eighteenth century. From his dramatic role as a pamphleteer in the American Revolution ( his “Common Sense” sold over 100,000 copies) to his “great debate”with Whig politician and philosopher Edmund Burke to his presence in the National Convention during the French Revolution, Tom Paine managed to be in “ the heat of the action”. But Edward Gray focuses on another aspect of his career— his fascination with bridge architecture, and his promotion of iron as the ideal material to answer America’s infrastructure needs. Unfortunately the combination of his radical political stances and his disorganized life prevented him from fully developing and profiting from his passion for iron bridges ( Paine dies in New York City in dire poverty). But Gray manages to trace Paine’s influence on some of the earliest examples of iron bridges built in England and America. Written gracefully, this is a history book the general reader can enjoy.
July 14, 2024
Along with penning the landmark pro-independence work Common Sense, Paine was also an architect (which Gray points out included building projects, not just designing them). One of the challenges for the early United States was that it was a big country with a lot of rivers dividing it up. Bridge architecture was no match for the kind of flooding and ice floes many of them had to withstand. Paine saw developing iron bridgework as a way to build bridges that could take a licking and keep on ticking.
Specialized, but interesting.
Specialized, but interesting.
June 8, 2020
An interesting concept for a book that explores some unstudied ground about a well studied person. That’s the sales pitch of the book anyway. But what this really is is a biography of Thomas Paine, plus a history of engineering in the late 1700s. There isn’t as much as one might expect bridging the gap (get it)?
I did learn a bit about both Paine and bridges, and this book was easy enough to read... it just didn’t knock my socks off.
I did learn a bit about both Paine and bridges, and this book was easy enough to read... it just didn’t knock my socks off.
September 26, 2018
Very enjoyable. Much more than bridge building. A nice biography that explains his life. Author leaves out modern-day biases which is nice given some of the books masquerading as unbiased history today.
May 21, 2022
A gift from my dad, Thomas Paine’s Iron Bridge was a short read that I punted on for a while. Its part biography and part history textbook which leads it to be dry yet informative on one of America’s lesser known founding fathers. In fact, the overarching story of Paine’s is similar to Alexander Hamilton’s in that they were both immigrants from working class backgrounds trying ti make a name in a new land. However, while Hamilton was able to establish himself as a federal force that led to the creation of many of standards in our government, Paine was a subtle operator in spreading discourse for democracy and dissent for autocracy in his homeland of England, adopted homeland of the United States and his extended hosting country of France.
As he combatted forces both on the battlefield and the literary and political worlds, Paine also dreamed of establishing Philadelphia once more as a prominent port with a bridge to cross the Schuylkill River. The need for this bridge came from the siphoning of products and agricultural yields from Philadelphia’s western hinterlands to Baltimore. As the author takes you through Paine’s life, he bounces between his political yearnings and literary hits such as Common Sense and Paine’s passion in bridge architecture as engineering was called then.
The lineal biography makes for easy to follow history guidelines but leaves the bridge design as a distant plot line until the very end, almost as if its forced in to please the book title. As such, I wouldn’t reread it for anything but a quick reminder on the tumultuous early period of the United State’s beginning.
As he combatted forces both on the battlefield and the literary and political worlds, Paine also dreamed of establishing Philadelphia once more as a prominent port with a bridge to cross the Schuylkill River. The need for this bridge came from the siphoning of products and agricultural yields from Philadelphia’s western hinterlands to Baltimore. As the author takes you through Paine’s life, he bounces between his political yearnings and literary hits such as Common Sense and Paine’s passion in bridge architecture as engineering was called then.
The lineal biography makes for easy to follow history guidelines but leaves the bridge design as a distant plot line until the very end, almost as if its forced in to please the book title. As such, I wouldn’t reread it for anything but a quick reminder on the tumultuous early period of the United State’s beginning.
July 19, 2016
I liked this little book. I don't know of another that follows Tom Paine as closely through his life. Common Sense had great impact on people's acceptance of the revolution and it was widely circulated through the colonies and in Europe. Paine refused to make any profit from his publications.
What I never knew about the man was his interest in developing the infrastructure in his new country, particularly bridge building. He is credited with inventing an iron bridge that could span rivers without interrupting ongoing river traffic. Unfortunately his dream was never fully realized.
What I never knew about the man was his interest in developing the infrastructure in his new country, particularly bridge building. He is credited with inventing an iron bridge that could span rivers without interrupting ongoing river traffic. Unfortunately his dream was never fully realized.
June 15, 2016
An interesting summary of a tragic, driven life. Paine, though the preeminent voice for the Revolution ("Common Sense"), lost his esteem by vociferously supporting the French Reign of Terror, fomenting revolution in Britain, and denouncing Christianity. He was a masochist who couldn't stop while he was ahead.
November 23, 2016
Interesting biography of Thomas Paine. Personally, I wished it spent a little more time on his bomb throwing rabble rousing and political treatise rather than his penchant for building and designing bridges but a good short biography nonetheless.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews