Directions for Using Thacher's Calculating Instrument
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Thacher's Calculating Instrument Or Cylindrical Slide-Rule: Containing Complete and Simple Rules and Directions for Performing the Greatest Variety of ... With Unexampled Rapidity and Accuracy
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Thacher was born at De Kalb, St. Lawrence County, New York, 1839, the youngest of four children and the only son of Dr. Seymour and Elizabeth (Smith) Thacher. Both his parents were of New England stock and his father was for almost a half century one of the leading physicians of St. Lawrence County. During Edwin's childhood the family moved to Hermon, in the same county, where they made their home.
Education
Thacher entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N. Y. , in September 1860, and was graduated with high honors as a civil engineer in 1863.
Career
After a brief experience with the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railroad he was drawn into Civil War service and from 1864 until the end of the conflict acted as assistant engineer of the United States military railroads, being attached to the Department of the Cumberland with headquarters at Nashville, Tenn.
In 1866 he accepted a position at Louisville, Ky. , in connection with the construction of the Cincinnati branch of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington Railroad. Two years later he changed from general railroad work to the important related field of bridge construction, becoming in 1868 assistant engineer of the Louisville Bridge Company, then building the Fourteenth Street Bridge over the Ohio River at Louisville. This change marked the turning point in his career, for his later work was entirely of a structural type and it was in the structural field that his reputation was achieved. He remained with the Fourteenth Street Bridge until it was completed and opened for traffic; then resigned, and in August 1870 became assisting and computing engineer of the Louisville Bridge & Iron Company.
After nine years in this connection, he became computing engineer for the famous old Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh, Pa. , one of the elements in the early career of the great American steel master, Andrew Carnegie. Thacher was made chief engineer about 1883, but in 1887 resigned to become chief engineer, and later receiver, for the Decatur Bridge & Construction Company at Decatur, Ala. Late in 1889 he severed this connection and began his career as a consulting engineer in Louisville, Ky.
In 1894 he moved to Detroit, Mich. , to become a partner in the firm of Keepers & Thacher and in 1901 became associated with William Mueser in the Concrete Steel Engineering Company, New York City. This last association continued until his retirement in 1912.
Thacher's particular interest in the calculations of structural design was reflected in his invention of the Thacher cylindrical slide rule, which he patented in 1881, and in the many tables for such work which he prepared.
As early as 1889 he became interested in concrete-steel construction and in 1899 his firm built the concrete-steel arch over the Kansas River at Topeka. This was the most famous of his arches of this type, and, while completely eclipsed by modern works, was a notable bridge in its day. Another of his contributions was the "Thacher bar, " one of the first of the so-called deformed bars used in reinforced concrete construction – later a standard type of reinforcing.
He died fifteen years later at his home in New York City, survived by his only child, a daughter.