Ralph Modjeski

Ralph Modjeski was born Rudolf Modrzejewski on January 27, 1861, in Bochnia, in what was then Austrian-ruled Galicia, the son of the actress Helena Modjeska and the sculptor Gustav Sinnmayer Modrzejewski. He trained as a pianist as a boy, alongside a childhood friend named Ignacy Jan Paderewski who became one of Europe's leading concert pianists. In 1876 his mother emigrated to California with her family and, preparing to build a stage career under an anglicized name, renamed her fifteen-year-old son Ralph Modjeski for convenience. He did not follow her into acting. Paris sent him toward bridges instead: he studied at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, took American citizenship while still a student there, and graduated first in his class in 1885.

Modjeski apprenticed under George S. Morison, then the era's leading bridge engineer, before opening an independent design office in Chicago in 1893. His firm designed close to forty major spans, including the Government Bridge at Rock Island and the Thebes Bridge across the Mississippi. In 1907 the first Quebec Bridge collapsed mid-construction, killing 75 workers, the worst disaster in the history of bridge engineering, and the following year Modjeski joined the board appointed to redesign it. A second collapse during erection killed 13 more men in 1916 before the span opened in 1917 as the longest cantilever bridge ever built, a record it still holds. He later served as chief engineer of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, completed in 1926 as the world's longest suspension span, and as president of the board of consultants for the Bay Bridge, which opened in 1936.

The Quebec Bridge tied Modjeski's name to the deadliest bridge-construction disaster North America had ever recorded, and he had not caused the first collapse — he was hired specifically to fix the wreckage the original engineers left behind. That did not spare his board the second failure in 1916, when a suspended central span dropped into the St. Lawrence River during lifting and killed 13 more ironworkers, a decade into a project meant to restore confidence rather than cost more lives. His domestic life dissolved on a similar clock. He married his cousin Felicie Benda in 1885 and had three children with her, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1931 after sixteen years of separation, and he remarried within months, to Virginia Giblyn, at age seventy, while his final project, the Bay Bridge, was still years from completion.

Modjeski died in Los Angeles on June 26, 1940, not long after seeing the Bay Bridge finished. The New York Times called him the world's leading bridge builder, with more large spans to his credit than any other engineer of his generation. Joseph B. Strauss, who trained under him before designing the Golden Gate Bridge, opened his own span six months after Modjeski's Bay Bridge in 1936. The firm Modjeski founded in Chicago in 1893 still operates today as Modjeski and Masters, still designing bridges under his name. The Quebec Bridge he helped finish remains, more than a century later, the longest cantilever span ever built.

Ralph Modjeski's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Government Bridge, Rock Island building
  Double-deck rail and road span across the Mississippi 1896
• Quebec Bridge building
  Still the longest cantilever bridge span in the world; two collapses during construction killed 88 workers 1917
• Benjamin Franklin Bridge building
  Chief engineer; the world's longest suspension span at completion 1926
• San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge building
  President of the board of consultants; his last project 1936
• Modjeski and Masters company
  Engineering firm he founded in Chicago; still operating under his name 1893

• January 27, 1861 aged 0 Born Rudolf Modrzejewski in Bochnia, Galicia
• 1876 aged ~15 Emigrates to the U.S. and is renamed Ralph Modjeski His mother, preparing an American stage career as Helena Modjeska, renamed him for convenience.
• 1885 aged ~24 Graduates first in his class from the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, Paris
• 1893 aged ~32 Opens an independent bridge-design office in Chicago
• August 29, 1907 aged 46 The first Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers
• September 11, 1916 aged 55 A second Quebec Bridge collapse during erection kills 13 more workers
• 1926 aged ~65 The Benjamin Franklin Bridge opens as the world's longest suspension span
• November 12, 1936 aged 75 The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens
• June 26, 1940 aged 79 Dies in Los Angeles

• Joseph Strauss 1870–1938
  Chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the most photographed structures in the world. trained
• Othmar Ammann 1879–1965
  Swiss-American structural engineer who designed the George Washington Bridge and other major spans. contemporary suspension-bridge rival
• Washington Roebling 1837–1926
  Engineer who oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after his father's death. predecessor in American long-span bridge building