Summer 1997

WHEN MUD AND SANDBARS were choking off the Mississippi— America’s highway—from the ocean, James Buchanan Eads had the solution. But to implement it, he had to overcome an adversary even more implacably hostile than the river itself: the Army Corps of Engineers.

JOSEPH FABER SPENT SEVENTEEN YEARS working on a speech synthesizer in the mid-nineteenth century. When he finally perfected it, almost no one cared.

WHY CREAKY OLD 1960S-ERA mainframes are still being used to keep air travel safe

HAROLD EDGERTON MADE visible everyday things that no one had ever seen before. What he did was both industrial engineering and art.

The old ways of construction became suddenly, tragically inadequate with the adoption of new materials, equipment, and operating conditions.