(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Gustave Eiffel, dead at age 91 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-27 … 100 years ago today. A regional newspaper has an article today on Mr. Eiffel, marking the century since his death and focusing on 10 supposedly little known facts about his life. I thought I’d share a version of them for those who may be interested. 1. Eiffel wasn’t originally his name Eiffel's name at his birth in 1832 was Alexandre Gustave Bonickhausen dit Eiffel. His family originally was from the Eifel region of Germany, named for the Eifel mountain range of eastern Belgium, northern Luxembourg, and western Germany. The Bonickhausen family name was a challenge for French people to pronounce when Eiffel’s grandfather emigrated to France, so his grandfather changed the name formally to Bonickhausen dit Eiffel, but shortened it to Eiffel for everyday usage. Gustave had further reason to leave behind the Germanic portion of his surname in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, much as some German immigrants to the U.S. did during and after WWI, so he wrote to the Minister of Justice in 1878 requesting a name change, noting that "[It] inspires [doubts] about my French nationality, and this simple doubt is likely to cause me, either individually or commercially, the greatest prejudice." He reportedly had even been accused of being a spy for the enemy during the war. He got his request approved the following year and his name formally was shortened to Eiffel. 2. He planned to be a chemist Eiffel graduated in 1855 from the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris , with the goal of taking over his uncle's acid manufacturing factory. After graduating with a degree in chemical engineering, his ambitions were dashed when his father, a former member of Napoleon's light cavalry who held strong Bonapartist views, conflicted with his uncle, a Republican. There goes the acid factory. As he pondered his future, Eiffel took advantage of his free time to wander the aisles of the Universal Exhibition being held in Paris that year. Amazed by all the inventions, he was particularly impressed by the Palais de l'industrie and its wrought-iron framed glass roofs. Some exhibits demonstrated the versatility of steel, which was replacing iron as an important building material. The prospects it offered for revolutionizing construction fascinated him. Engraving of the Palais de l’Industrie, constructed 1855 for the Paris World Fair 3. First projects: railway bridges Eiffel got his first job at the Forges de Châtillon-sur-Seine, where his brother-in-law was manager. That always helps. He then joined the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Ouest (Western Railway Company) to build a metal railway bridge near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a suburb located west-northwest of central Paris. Rail construction was booming at the time, and steel had quickly become a popular material for structures such as bridges and viaducts. The young engineer was soon hired by the Compagnie Générale de Matériel de Chemin de Fer (General Railway Equipment Company), and entrusted with his first major project: the construction of the Saint-Jean passerelle (pedestrian bridge) across the Garonne River in Bordeaux, a bridge spanning 510 meters (1,673 feet). Saint-Jean pedestrian bridge Eiffel developed innovative techniques, such as riveting lattice girders for greater resistance to vibration, and compressed-air pile driving, which he used for the foundations of the bridge piers. After 26 months of construction, the Saint-Jean Bridge was inaugurated on July 8, 1860. The bridge was a technical achievement at the time and drew international acclaim to the young Gustave, then age 27. 4. Gustave the entrepreneur Following this early success, Eiffel decided to start his own company. Entreprises Eiffel was founded in 1866 in Levallois-Perret, a northwest suburb located just outside today’s périphérique (beltway) around Paris. The engineer surrounded himself with the best collaborators he could hire, and developed an innovative assembly concept that enabled him to outpace his competitors. He developed sturdy, portable bridges of simple, construction, made up of standardized parts, delivered with instructions, and then bolted together onsite by a small work crew. These kit bridges, sold worldwide, made the company's fortune. Eiffel went even further, offering lighthouses, railway stations, covered halls and concert halls, right down to standardized churches, all built in metal framework, which could be selected from a catalog. In all, more than 500 structures were produced by Eiffel and its teams. They can be found in some thirty countries on five continents. Among the most emblematic structures are the Garabit viaduct (Cantal, France), the Maria Pia Bridge in Porto, Portugal, Clemenceau Bridge (now Pont Trang Tien) in Hué, Vietnam, the Pest (Budapest) railway station (Hungary), the Nice observatory, and opera houses in Nice and Monaco in collaboration with famed architect Charles Garnier. 5. Lady Liberty To support the monumental work imagined by sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France to the United States to celebrate 100 years of American independence, the sculptor called on the engineer. Eiffel worked on the statue's internal load-bearing structure, to prevent it from collapsing. His workshops produced the entire internal metal frame of the statue. 6. The Eiffel Tower was not his idea This famous tower, the tallest structure in the world at the time, was not Eiffel’s idea. It was the brainchild of two of his engineers at Entreprises Eiffel, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, who imagined this metal edifice for the event. The two men presented their first sketches to their boss in 1884, but he was not immediately convinced. It wasn't until Stephen Sauvestre, the company's chief architect, reworked the project that Gustave Eiffel became enthusiastic. So much so, that on September 18, 1884, he filed a patent in his own name and that of Koechlin and Nouguier, "for a new arrangement enabling the construction of metal piers and towers over 300 meters high". And he soon bought out the rights of his two engineers to hold the exclusive rights to the future tower, which would consequently bear his name. Eiffel Tower under construction The 312 meter (1,024 foot) high Eiffel Tower was the landmark of the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris The industrialist financed two-thirds of the tower's construction from his own funds. Eiffel defended his project against its many detractors at the time (including sometime collaborator Charles Garnier), then did everything in his power to save his tower, which was intended by the exhibition organizers to be temporary and dismantled after the exhibition ended. Famous author Guy de Maupassant was a particular critic of the tower, which seemed to follow him around wherever he walked in the streets of Paris, always polluting the view of his beloved city. He called it his “iron arch nemesis.” Finally, Maupassant found a solution to his dilemma; a place where he could avoid sight of the tower piercing the Paris sky that he obviously despised so much: underneath the Eiffel tower itself. Every day, he had lunch at the tower’s base restaurant, for the simple reason that “inside the restaurant was one of the few places where I could sit and not actually see the tower.” Despite its critics, the tower has become one of the most famous and widely-recognized structures in the world and a symbol not just of Paris but of France generally. 7. A boss who cares A charismatic, rigorous leader, Gustave Eiffel demanded a great deal from his workers. But he was no less sensitive to their working conditions. For example, during construction of the Garabit viaduct in 1882, he had a village built near the site to house the workers and their families, including a school for the children. When bid requests were received, he refused to lower prices by cutting wages or worker safety to reduce costs, even if it meant losing a contract. He also was known for continuing to pay the salary of workers if they happened to be injured at his work site(s). On the Eiffel Tower construction site, he set up a free canteen for workers on the second level of the tower, as they were building it, providing a way for them to avoid having to climb up and down stairs for their lunch break. 8. Swiss Army knife tower As part of his attempts to make the tower useful and preserve its life, Eiffel installed a meteorological station at the top of the building as soon as it was inaugurated. In 1903, the tower once again was threatened with demolition, so Eiffel made it available to the army. He financed the military testing of wireless telegraphy, conducted by Captain Ferrié, which was successful. The Tower's transmitter at the time had the world's highest antenna and a range of 400 kilometers (~250 miles). The antenna made it possible to eavesdrop on German communications in World War I, and in 1914, Ferrié intercepted German army messages, information that helped the French counterattack on the Marne to succeed. Later, his eavesdropping from the tower intercepted coded messages that contributed to the arrest of the notorious alleged spy Mata Hari (Margaretha Zelle). Early in the age of flight, Gustave Eiffel also began experimenting with aerodynamics, installing a wind tunnel in one of the legs of his tower in 1908. The facility simulated 100 km/h (62 mph) winds, enabling the quantitative testing of propellers and aircraft fuselages. The end of one attempt to make the tower useful is generally not lamented: advertising. Illuminated Citroën vehicle advertising on the Eiffel Tower, ca. 1927. The oval blobs between the first and second level contain the Citroën double chevron logo. 9. Eiffel wets his beak in the Panama Canal; gets bitten by scandal Reportedly, Eiffel’s last commission was to design giant locks for Ferdinand de Lesseps' ill-fated Panama Canal project. Launched in 1881, the French-led project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Panama was plagued by delays and financing problems. Concealing many of the difficulties, Lessep continued to collect money from investors and bribed both journalists and politicians to ease the release of public funds into the project’s coffers. In 1887, Lesseps asked Eiffel to design a dozen gigantic locks. The engineer received large financial advances to begin his work. Two years later, the scandal broke: the Compagnie du Canal went into receivership, financially ruining 85,000 subscribers. Gustave Eiffel, who had nothing to do with the fraud, found himself accused of breach of trust, and was tried and sentenced in 1893 to a 20,000 franc fine and two years in prison. Imprisoned at the Conciergerie, he eventually spent just one week in a cell before he was cleared by the Court of Cassation, a high-level French appeals court. Eiffel's honor was besmirched, and he decided to leave the world of engineering and join the world of research. 10. The women in his life Urban legend has it that Gustave gave the Eiffel Tower an “A” shape as a symbol of his affection for Adrienne Bourgès, his great love. Gustave met Adrienne at the age of 29, when she was 18. The two wanted to wed, but Adrienne's family took a dim view of the young man from Dijon, who comes from a family of upstarts (Eiffel’s mother’s family had rapidly became wealthy from coal mining). Accordingly, Adrienne’s family ended the relationship. Eiffel found solace in the arms of Marguerite Gaudelet, the wife his mother had found for him. The arranged marriage was a happy one, producing five children until Marguerite tragically succumbed to tuberculosis in 1877, after fifteen years of marriage. Eiffel never married again, and it was another woman who took pride of place in his heart and life: Claire, his eldest daughter. At the age of 14, she acted as surrogate mother to her siblings, then became her father's closest collaborator, working with him on a daily basis. After her marriage, Claire and her husband moved into Gustave Eiffel's house, where she continued to look after her father's home until his death on December 27, 1923, at the age of 91, 100 years ago today. 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