With each passing year a new batch of books, music, movies and other creative works passes into the public domain. This year includes the Fifth Edition of Merriman and Wiggin’s American Civil Engineers’ Handbook, a copy of which graced Chet’s library and, passing through the Vulcan Iron Works, ended up in my hands.

It was appropriate that this book was in his library: Mansfield Merriman, the original editor of the book, taught at Lehigh University (the home of Tau Beta Pi,) although he had left by the time Chet arrived (Chet graduated in 1912 with a degree in Civil Engineering.) By the time the Fifth Edition was published in 1930 Mansfield Merriman had died and his son Thaddeus had taken his place.

Chet’s own copy, although the Fifth Edition, was a 1941 printing. By that time Thaddeus had passed as well. My guess is that Chet, moving back to Chicago to take command of the Vulcan Iron Works, needed to “brush up” on some of the things he had learned (or hadn’t) at Lehigh. It’s appropriate that the copy online came from the Chicago Public Library.

One additional important difference is that the download was scanned from one volume while Chet’s copy was a two-volume set.

We trust that this will be helpful to you as it was (hopefully) to Chet.