Tom Paine''s Iron Bridge: Building a United States

In a letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams judged the author of Common Sense as having a better hand at pulling down than building. Adamss dismissive remark has helped shape the prevailing view of Tom Paine ever since. But, as Edward G. Gray shows in this fresh, illuminating work, Paine was a builder. He had a clear vision of success for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent a decade planning: an iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.

When Paine arrived in Philadelphia from England in 1774, the city was thriving as Americas largest port. But the seasonal dangers of the rivers dividing the region were becoming an obstacle to the citys continued growth. Philadelphia needed a practical connection between the rich grain of Pennsylvanias backcountry farms and its port on the Delaware. The iron bridge was Paines solution.

The bridge was part of Paines answer to the central political challenge of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and as geographically fragmented as the United States. The iron construction was Paines brilliant response to the age-old challenge of bridge technology: how to build a structure strong enough to withstand the constant battering of water, ice, and wind.

The convergence of political and technological design in Paines plan was Enlightenment genius. And Paine drew other giants of the period as patrons: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and for a time his great ideological opponent, Edmund Burke. Paines dream ultimately was a casualty of the vicious political crosscurrents of revolution and the American penchant for bridges of cheap, plentiful wood. But his innovative iron design became the model for bridge construction in Britain as it led the world into the industrial revolution.