The Engineer's Wife

 Did you know the Brooklyn bridge was constructed after the Civil War and completed in 1883? I didn't either but I learned a lot about that when I read Tracey Emerson Wood's historical fiction called The Engineer's Wife. The wife's name was Emily Warren Roebling. The bridge was designed by her father-in-law. When his foot was crushed early in the bridge construction process and he died of tetanus, her husband, Washington Roebling, took over. The footings for the bridge had to be constructed on bedrock below the East River. To get under the river they built huge metal floorless boxes into which they forced air so the construction workers could breathe. These boxes were called caissons. At that time they didn't know about decompression disease and how important it is to come up from the depths slowly so the body could gradually adjust to the change in pressure. Her husband stayed down too long and was overcome with caisson disease also known as the bends or decompression illness. The disease sapped his strength, his ability to walk upright, and made him irritable. Emily had always been interested in his work and she was a whiz at figures and engineering so it was only natural that she take over as engineer. This was a time of women's suffrage so both men and women did not appreciate her efforts. Emily was between a rock and a hard place. For some reason and not based on history, the author decided to include an emotional affair between Emily and P.T. Barnum which I thought detracted from the story. Other than that, I thought this was a fine story.