Before there was a Brooklyn Bridge there was only a dangerous ferry crossing, fraught with sea tides and icebergs. During the Civil War, no civil engineering projects could be constructed, but Emily Warren marries Captain Washington 'Wash' Roebling, knowing that at the end of the war, this man was going to work in his father’s engineering firm and build a bridge. THE ENGINEER’S WIFE is a fictionalised but carefully researched version of how that bridge was built and how a marriage came together, fell apart, and was rebuilt under all the tensions.  

How do you build a massive bridge unlike any other? You start by building smaller ones. As Chief Engineer, John Roebling constructs the Cincinnati Bridge over the Ohio River, but when he dies during the course of his highly risky work, the mantle falls upon his son, Washington. Emily Warren is keen to be a suffragette but is expected to play the society hostess, raise funds, to be cordial to influential businessmen, to work in the office, and, to covertly inspect the building site.

The Brooklyn Bridge footings had to be built upon a foundation of river bedrock, with men inside giant wooden caissons excavating silt and rubble before concrete could be poured. What was then termed “caisson disease,” and we now know as the bends, afflicted many workers, including the brave and devoted Wash. Emily steps into his role, with insight from her husband, his extensive library of engineering tomes, and his trusted foremen.

Author Tracey Enerson Wood tells us exactly what is true to research and what she altered, mainly moving events a little in time or solidified a connection between characters. Certainly, Enerson has done a fine job of letting us into the head of a lady who was well-raised and without much education, but proved herself more than capable of coming up with suggestions and supervising. I was fascinated by the account of the massive private construction project and by the portrayal of these people’s lives and loves. P. T. Barnum is interestingly portrayed as a tawdry moneymaker and somewhat of a charmer where the ladies were concerned, as well as what we’d now call a "controlling" man. I suppose he had to be, to keep creating entertainment enterprises on the scale that he did.

THE ENGINEER’S WIFE is a work of great scope, covering two decades from the Civil War, to the claustrophobic caisson work, to the final parade. I stand impressed.