ABSTRACT
Iron, the preeminent hallmark of the Industrial Revolution, had become by the middle of the nineteenth century sufficiently available and economical in the United States, either by importation or by domestic production, that its widespread use for building construction was at last practicable. For most historians, the prophet, apostle, and patron saint of Ferromania has been James Bogardus. By the summer of 1847 Bogardus exhibited a model of the new building which he proposed to construct entirely of iron, a material with which he was intimately familiar. In his new factory Bogardus looked west across Centre Street to the shop of another claimant to priority in iron fronts. Cast-iron architecture received a powerful stimulus early in 1852 when Thomas Ustick Walter chose it for rebuilding the new Library of Congress within the U. S. Capitol it-self. In 1845 John Roebling had built a suspended canal aqueduct over the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh.
