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    "ocrText": "George Washington, the Potomac Canal and the Beginning of American Civil Engineering: Engineering Problems and Solu.\nPage 1 of 1\nASCE\nAMERICAN SOCIETY\nOF CIVIL ENGINEERS\nCE Database Search I Descriptions I Search Tips I Subject Heading List\nGeorge Washington, the Potomac Canal and the Beginning of American Civil Engineering:\nEngineering Problems and Solutions\nby Robert J. Kapsch, Ph.D., M.ASCE, (Senior Scholar in Historic Architecture and Historic Engineering, National Park Service, 1100 Ohio Drive, S.W., Washington,\nD.C. 20242)\npp. 129-194, (doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/40654(2003)7)\nPurchase this Article/Access full text\nPurchase Subscription\nPermissions for Reuse\n?\nDocument type:\nConference Proceeding Paper\nPart of:\nAmerican Civil Engineering History: The Pioneering Years\nAbstract:\nThe American Society of Civil Engineers was organized in 1852. But American civil engineering began much earlier. To understand the\nbeginning of American civil engineering, it is useful to look at America when civil engineering and American civil engineers did not exist but\nwere coming into existence. The history of the Potomac Company, established in 1785, provides us with a vehicle for examining America\nwithout civil engineers and civil engineering. As the company's first president, it was George Washington who first tried to hire American civil\nengineers to undertake the planning, design and construction of the Potomac Canal - but there were none. England and France had\nengineers but the company was not willing to pay foreign engineers to come to America. The company did occasionally use English\nengineers already in America as consultants. It was Washington and his Board of Directors who made the engineering decisions for the\ncanal. The principle engineering decision was the decision to use sluice navigation as a means of improving the Potomac River navigation.\nIn engineering terms, as shown later by early American engineers Thomas Moore and Isaac Briggs, this decision was not only wrong but\ncounter-productive-sluice navigation made the river more dangerous and difficult to navigate. By 1823 the Potomac Canal was widely\nviewed as a major failure, not only financially (which it was) but also from an engineering perspective. The failure of the Potomac Company\nwas directly related to the lack of engineering expertise used in its planning, design and construction. It was decided that the Potomac\nCompany had to be abandoned and replaced by a new stillwater canal, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The new canal was to be planned\nand designed by an army of civil engineers from the Erie Canal and elsewhere, under the direction of Benjamin Wright, the father of\nAmerican civil engineering. These men employed totally different methods than were used on the Potomac Canal. Detailed plans were\nprepared. Levels and other precise survey instruments were used. Work was broken into individual contracts monitored by a large corps of\nengineers. Between the beginning of the Potomac Canal (1785) and its demise (1828), civil engineering had come to America and\nAmericans had become civil engineers.\nASCE Subject Headings:\nCivil engineering landmarks\nAlgorithms\nHistory\nCivil engineering\nCanals\nPotomac River\nCE Database Search I Descriptions I Search Tips I Subject Heading List\nCopyright © 1996 2011, American Society of Civil Engineers\nhttp://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WwWdisplay.cgi?133192\n8/11/2012"
}