July 2020
Joseph Strauss was a tenacious man. Despite his small stature, he was an over-achiever driven to do great things, and as his signature achievement, the Golden Gate Bridge, attests, he was able to accomplish them.
Strauss wanted to be a poet and an athlete. He wrote poetry his whole life and became reasonably good at it, but he was so badly injured in a football game he spent time in an infirmary. His room overlooked a Cincinnati suspension bridge, which he admired so much he decided he wanted to build bridges. He did, dozens of them, including the Lefty O’Doul drawbridge across from San Francisco’s AT&T ballpark.
But his most challenging project came when Michael O’Shaughnessy, San Francisco’s city engineer, asked him to build a bridge across the Golden Gate between San Francisco and Marin County. Strauss agreed to build the bridge and fought 10 years to obtain authorization and funding.
When the bridge was finally approved, Strauss, as chief engineer, made sure it was done properly.
He protected bridge workers with numerous safety measures, and made sure they were strictly enforced. It included hard hats for workers, respirator masks for riveters, glare-free goggles, special hand and face cream, carefully formulated diets to fight dizziness, and an on-site field hospital. He required that all employees “tie-off” to the bridge to reduce falls. And he developed and installed a safety net under the bridge to catch workers who fell (and who then became members of the “Halfway to Hell” club.
As a result of Strauss’ concern and efforts, fatalities were well below norms for the time.
Strauss put his heart and soul into the Golden Gate Bridge, and his dogged efforts led to his death shortly after it was finished in 1937. He wrote the following poem to honor its completion.
The Mighty Task is Done
Written upon completion of the Golden Gate Bridge in May 1937
At last the mighty task is done;
Resplendent in the western sun
The Bridge looms mountain high;
Its titan piers grip ocean floor,
Its great steel arms link shore with shore,
Its towers pierce the sky.
On its broad decks in rightful pride,
The world in swift parade shall ride,
Throughout all time to be;
Beneath, fleet ships from every port,
Vast landlocked bay, historic fort,
And dwarfing all--the sea
