David Bernard Steinman's impoverished upbringing near New York's Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the construction of the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges during his childhood, served to fuel his desire to be an engineer later in life.

Raised in Brooklyn by Lithuanian parents, as one of seven children, Steinman received a B.S. in 1906 from City College of New York. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, receiving numerous honors and scholarships, which allowed him to go on to Columbia University, where he received a civil engineering degree in 1909 and a Ph.D. in 1911.

The subject of his thesis, "Design of the Henry Hudson Bridge as a Steel Arch," was later built in 1935-1937. The 256-meter span became the longest fixed arch and longest plate girder arch span in the world at that time.

After graduation, he worked under bridge engineer Gustav Lindenthal, before partnering with Holton D. Robinson, the engineer responsible for the Williamsburg Bridge cables and the design of the Manhattan Bridge.

Maria Grazia Bruschi, structural engineer and project manager, Parsons, wrote in her paper "Eminent Structural Engineer: David B. Steinman (1886-1960)": "Steinman's strength in the theoretical aspects of bridge engineering and Robinson's practical experience in construction complemented each other, and the office of Robinson and Steinman began obtaining commissions for significant structures…" Steinman and Robinson's firm, Robinson & Steinman, later became Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & Birdsall, carrying his name until it was bought by the Parsons Corporation in 1988.

For his very first project with Robinson, they designed a suspension bridge in Florianapolis, Brazil. Completed in 1926, it was the longest suspension bridge in South America (340 meters), and the longest eyebar suspension bridge in the world. Robinson and Steinman went on to design a number of significant structures, including the Carquinez Bridge, and a number of suspension bridges such as the Mount Hope, Grand Mere, St. Johns, Waldo-Hancock, Deer Isle and the Thousand Island bridge.

"Steinman was a very outspoken individual, and he felt strongly about the need for licensure and professional registration of engineers," Bruschi said. In 1934, he put this into action, calling together the New Jersey Association of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, the New York State Society of Professional Engineers, the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers and the Connecticut Society of Professional Engineers to form the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), a nontechnical organization dedicated to the interests of licensed professional engineers.

Steinman was elected president of this new organization. An excerpt from his keynote address, recorded on the NSPE website reads: "Through membership and active participation in NSPE, the individual engineer renders his contribution toward making engineering a better and more satisfying profession than he found it."

Steinman and his associates designed more than 400 bridges on five continents. "Although Steinman had the opportunity to work on many types of bridges, his technological legacy is almost always associated with suspension bridges. One design innovation developed by Steinman is the use of a center tie to rigidly connect the superstructure to the main cables, as a way of stiffening and stabilizing the superstructure," Bruschi said.

The Mackinac Bridge, which links Michigan's two peninsulas across the Straits of Mackinac, is the world's longest suspension bridge from anchorage to anchorage. Completed in 1957, just a few years before Steinman's death, it exemplifies his talent for combining beauty with innovation in design, including his use of a partially open grid deck and center tie.

Steinman wrote in his book, Miracle Bridge at Mackinac: "As far back as in 1893, when I was a newsboy selling papers near the Brooklyn Bridge, I told the other newsboys that someday I was going to build bridges like the famous structure that towered majestically above us. They laughed at me. Now I can point to 400 bridges I have built around the world, and to my masterwork — the Mackinac Bridge — the greatest of all."

A man of great ambition, Steinman had hopes to build the world's longest suspension bridge. In 1950, the Italian Steel Institute asked him to design a bridge across the Straits of Messina. He proposed a 1524-meter span, which would have exceeded the Golden Gate Bridge (the longest at the time) by 244 meters. According to Bruschi, "The Steinman design for the Messina Straits Bridge has been replaced with a design for an even longer span that incorporates later developments in suspension bridge technology, but some of his legacy remains in the current design for a 3300m span: e.g., in the use of a partially open grid deck to improve aerodynamic performance."

Steinman's ambition was not limited to bridge designs. He also wrote numerous technical papers, books on bridge construction, and even was a children's author and poet. In 1957, he was awarded the Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal.

Steinman died on August 21, 1960.

Christina M. Zweig is a contributing editor. She can be contacted at christinaz@zweigwhite.com.