MAIN

MAIN 16.02. 1856 Marblehead MA/USA 06.03. 1943 Winchester MA/USA Charles Thomas Main graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1876 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Cambridge MA, and there was instructor until 1879. He was from 1881 to 1891 an engineer and superintendent with the Lower Pacific Mills, Lawrence MA, reorganizing its machinery and installing a new power plant, moving until 1893 to a similar plant in Providence RI. He formed then until 1907 a partnership at Boston MA, organizing the firm Charles T. Main, which was incorporated in 1926. The Charles T. Main Award was established in 1919, given annually to a student member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME, of which Main was member, served as president in 1918, and was recipient of its 1935 Gold Medal. He also was member of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers and recipient of its 1913 Desmond Fitzgerald Medal, and was awarded the honorary degree from Northeastern University, Boston MA, in 1935, among many others. Main designed and advised from 1900 on the building of steam and water power plants across the USA. He was involved in these projects particularly at the Conowingo Dam across Susquehanna River in Maryland, and the Keokuk Dam across the Mississippi River. His firm designed over eighty hydro-electric plants during the early 20th century. He was also one of the nine American engineers sent to France after World War I to consult the French authorities on reconstruction works in their devastated country. He was a delegate to the World Power Conference held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1929, during which international aspects of power engineering were particularly discussed. He also drafted the first code of ethics, as subsequently adopted by all American Engineering societies. Main may therefore be considered an outstanding expert in questions of power engineering, as also an individual who has significantly contributed to the engineering community by his lifelong service. Anonymous (1916). Charles T. Main. ASME yearbook: Frontispiece. ASME: New York. P Anonymous (1918). Charles T. Main. Journal of the ASME 40(1): Frontispiece. P Main, C.T. (1886). Relative cost of steam and water power. MIT: Cambridge MA. Main, C.T. (1907). Computation of the values of water power, and the damages caused by the diversion of water used for power. J. New England Water Works Association 21: 214-240. Uhl, W.F. (1951). Charles T. Main: One of America’s best. Newcomen Society: Boston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_T._Main P

MANSON 14.02. 1850 Leewood VA/USA 21.02. 1931 San Francisco CA/USA Marsden Manson graduated in 1870 from Virginia Military Institute, Lexington VA, and obtained his first engineering experience on surveys along the Atlantic Ocean. He became in 1874 assistant in the US Army Corps of Engineers, on surveys for the extension of the James River and Kanawha Canal, and on making plans for the locks of this canal from Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River. He moved to California in 1877, first as instructor at a School at San Mateo, and then with the newly erected State Engineer Department of California. He had to study the damage made to rivers and farm lands by debris from hydraulic mines, which were partly done at the University of California, from where he obtained the PhD degree in 1880. He was then chief engineer of the California State Board of Harbor Commissioners operating the harbor and water-front facilities of San Francisco CA. After eleven years in this position, he became member of the San Francisco Sewer Commission, and subsequently also had his private practice. Manson was appointed in 1900 member of the San Francisco Board of Public Works. He took interest in the city’s endeavor to secure the right to store water on Tuolumne River and its tributaries. He spent much time at Washington DC in the interest of his city, with the result that an adequate permit was granted in 1908, which finally led to the Hetch Hetchy Project. He was then city engineer serving in this capacity for four years, from when he had again his private practice until his death. He was called ‘Dr.’ Manson had a strong leaning to the study of scientific problems, and was particularly interested in meteorology, and in the earth’s pre-glacial climate, which brought him in contact with scientists all over the world. He was described as a pleasant and charming personality. One of his friends has written: ‘Maintaining his mental activity to the end, he loved to dwell upon the things that might be, and undoubtedly will be, done to make this Coast, especially California, with its marvellous scenic and climatic offerings the playground of the nation’. Anonymous (1931). Marsden Manson. Trans. ASCE 95: 1554-1556. Grunsky, C.E., Manson, M., Tilton, C.S. (1899). System of sewerage for the city and county of San Francisco. Britton & Rey: San Francisco. Manson, M., Wilson, J.W. (1901). Report of irrigation investigations in California. Washington DC. Manson, M. (1922). The evolution of climates. Lord Baltimore Press: Berkeley CA. Unger, N.C. (2012). Beyond nature’s housekeepers. Oxford University Press: New York. P