Ernest L. Ransome
Encyclopedia
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
building techniques. Ransome devised the most sophisticated concrete structures in the United States at the time.
Ernest was the son of Frederick Ransome
Frederick Ransome
Frederick Ransome was a British inventor and industrialist, creator of Ransome's artificial stone.Frederick was the son of James Ransome, 1782-1849, a member of the Ransomes steel and agricultural equipment-making family of Ipswich....
, who had patented a process for producing artificial stone
Artificial stone
Artificial stone is a name for various kinds of synthetic stone products used from the 18th century onward. They have been used in building construction, civil engineering work, and industrial uses such as grindstones....
in 1844. Ernest was apprenticed to his father's factory in Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
. By the 1870s Ernest had moved to the USA and was the superintendent of the Pacific Stone Company in San Francisco. In 1884 after experimenting with reinforced concrete sidewalks, he patented a system of ferro-concrete with the iron rods twisted to improve the bond, then developed a patented Ransome system for practical reinforced concrete construction.
After a long string of accomplishments Ransome continued to meet with skepticism and resistance. His techniques were vindicated when his 1897 Borax Refinery in Bayonne went through a 1902 building fire hot enough to melt brass; the concrete frame was only slightly damaged. Likewise Ransome's two experimental buildings at Stanford survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
essentially without damage while the university's newer, conventional brick structures literally crumbled around them. The published analysis of these two buildings by fellow engineer John B. Leonard
John B. Leonard
John Buck Leonard was a pioneering bridge engineer and architect, early advocate for reinforced concrete, working mainly in northern California.- Life :...
did much to advance the safety of buildings in post-1906 San Francisco and nationwide.
In his later career Ransome focused on mixing equipment, formwork
Formwork
Formwork is the term given to either temporary or permanent molds into which concrete or similar materials are poured. In the context of concrete construction, the falsework supports the shuttering moulds.-Formwork and concrete form types:...
, and integrated building systems. In 1912 Ransome and Alexis Saurbrey co-authored Reinforced Concrete Buildings.
Work
- Arctic Oil Works, San FranciscoSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, 1884, the "first reinforced concrete building (of its kind) in the United States". - Pacific Coast Borax Refinery, Alameda, CaliforniaAlameda, CaliforniaAlameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to Oakland in the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Farm Island portion of the city is adjacent to the Oakland International Airport. At the 2010 census, the city had a...
, 1889 - Alvord Lake BridgeAlvord Lake BridgeThe Alvord Lake Bridge was the first reinforced concrete bridge built in America. It was built in 1889 by Ernest L. Ransome, an innovator in reinforced concrete design, mixing equipment, and construction systems...
, Golden Gate ParkGolden Gate ParkGolden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
, San Francisco, 1889, the first reinforced concrete bridge built in the United States - Torpedo Assembly Building, eastern end of Yerba Buena IslandYerba Buena IslandYerba Buena Island sits in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland, California. The Yerba Buena Tunnel runs through its center and connects the western and eastern spans of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It has had several other names over the decades: Sea Bird Island, Wood...
, San Francisco, 1891 - Berkeley Apartments (Buffalo, New York)Berkeley Apartments (Buffalo, New York)Berkeley Apartments, also known as the Graystone Hotel , is a historic apartment hotel building located at Buffalo in Erie County, New York. It was constructed between 1894 and 1897, and is one of the earliest examples of a large multistory building built of reinforced concrete. it was designed...
, Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, 1894–1897 - Pacific Coast Borax Refinery, Bayonne, New JerseyBayonne, New JerseyBayonne is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is a peninsula that is situated between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east...
, 1897 - Japanese Bridge at Francis Marion SmithFrancis Marion SmithFrancis Marion Smith was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California.Frank Smith created the extensive interurban public transit Key System in Oakland, the East Bay,...
's estate Presdeleau, still visible at 22 Merkel Lane Shelter Island, New YorkShelter Island (town), New YorkShelter Island is a town and island at the eastern end of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. It forms the tip of Suffolk County and is separated from the rest of the county by water. The population was 2,228 at the 2000 census.-Geography:... - four city reservoirs at Mount TaborMount Tabor (Oregon)Mount Tabor is the name of a dormant volcanic cinder cone, the city park on the volcano, and the neighborhood of Southeast Portland that surrounds it, all in Oregon. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel...
and Washington Park, Portland, OregonPortland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, 1894–1911 - Roble Hall (women's dormitory) at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, 1891, renamed Sequoia HallSequoia HallSequoia Hall is the home of the Statistics Department on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California.-History:In 1891, the original building opened as Roble Hall, a three-story women's dormitory. Roble Hall housed the first women admitted to Stanford...
in 1917 (razed) - The Leland Stanford Junior Museum of Art (now the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual ArtsIris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual ArtsThe Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...
), at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, 1894 - United Shoe factory buildings, Beverly, MassachusettsBeverly, MassachusettsBeverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 39,343 on , which differs by no more than several hundred from the 39,862 obtained in the 2000 census. A resort, residential and manufacturing community on the North Shore, Beverly includes Beverly Farms and Prides...
, 1902 - Ingalls BuildingIngalls BuildingThe Ingalls Building, built in 1903 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was the world's first reinforced concrete skyscraper. The 15 story building was designed by the Cincinnati architectural firm Elzner & Anderson and was named for its primary financial investor, Melville E. Ingalls...
, Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati, OhioCincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, 1903