Civil engineering has been an essential aspect of life throughout human existence. Its appearance dates back to the times of the creation of the pyramids in Ancient Egypt and the increased want in the transportation of supplies, materials, and goods for people and construction; ancient civil engineering principles and techniques formed the basis of the building norms people use nowadays. However, till the beginning of the 19th century professions of an engineer and an architect were just variations referring to the same person; there was no difference between civil engineering and architecture. So, when did the civil engineering profession appear then? How has it developed throughout history in the United States?
The origins of the civil engineering profession can be found in the years of the Industrial Revolution and even a bit earlier, at the end of the 18th – beginning of 19th centuries (Hansen 19). The Age of Enlightenment and its scientific discoveries, and the new emerged industrial needs of the Industrial Revolution were a perfect basis for innovations. Some military engineers started to work on civil projects, and the term civil engineer appeared. The popularity and importance of civil projects grew; this led to establishing of lots of civil engineering societies, as, for example, the American Society of Civil engineers. In 1835, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York awarded the first degree in Civil Engineering in the United States (Hansen 55).
Civil engineering and civil engineers have naturally changed and developed in the course of time. In the United States of America, 1865-1918 years were the period of Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, characterized by the wide expansion of industrialization. The US became the leading industrial nation in the world and powered the Second Industrial Revolution, which pioneered industry based on technology and transportation advancements. That times civil engineering was concentrated on the construction of railway roads that opened the West and connected two parts of the country. The appearance of new materials, such as iron and steel, and the invention of steam power machines and internal combustion engines that, in turn, led to the appearance of new building machines and mechanisms, allowed to design new constructions of civil projects and to optimize construction processes. In 1917, America entered the World War I, and lots of American civil engineers went to Europe and helped to build bridges, roads, and railroads at or behind the front. Lots of them started to develop military engineering projects, what is typical for the times of wars in whole and was the same during the World War II.
Civil engineers have always met the necessities of the society peculiar to one or another time. For example, the period between two world wars, which was a peak of the Machine Age is known for mass production of goods for assembly lines, led to mass production of automobiles and, hence, to the appearance of traffic. In order to solve this problem and to control it in 1928 famous American civil engineer Charles Adler, Jr. invented the first traffic light. The same was at the end of the 19th century, when Truman Heminway Aldrich built railways from the coal mines and provided an efficient fuel for steam locomotives. Nowadays, civil engineering is a base for creating machinery, roads, buildings, schools, bridges, etc. With the continued advancement in technologies and development of different constructional programs as CAD and CAM, designing and testing of different types of structures becomes much easier and more cost-efficient. Discoveries of new materials and computer modeling of construction work allow civil engineers to develop more complicated projects and significantly improve society’s life.
Civil engineer is definitely a remarkable profession that allows us to observe the results of its productivity everywhere around. It has evaluated throughout history and has always matched the needs of the time. In co-operation with another sciences, such as geology and chemistry, civil engineering allows its disciples to ease and improve the life of people all over the world. It is one of the most important fields of the whole engineering.
References
Hansen, Karen, and Zenobia, Kent (2011). Civil Engineer’s Handbook of Professional Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
