Elwood Mead

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Elwood Mead

Elwood Mead (born January 16, 1858 in Patriot , Indiana , † January 26, 1936 in Washington, DC ) was an American engineer and professor of agriculture . He was the builder of the Hoover Dam .

Life

Mead received his bachelor's degree from Purdue University in 1882 , his master 's degree in 1883, and his doctorate in 1884 from Iowa State University . In between (1883/1884 and 1886-1888) he taught mathematics at the Colorado School of Agriculture. As a civil servant engineer in the US state of Wyoming , Mead formulated the first state water laws in 1888/1889. He then worked for the United States Department of the Interior from 1897 to 1907 .

Mead lost his right forearm in a streetcar accident in Washington, DC on June 12, 1901.

Mead was around 1904, among other things, head of the department for irrigation and drainage of the United States Department of Agriculture and holder of a chair in field irrigation in the agricultural department of the University of Berkeley, California.

In 1907 Mead was appointed chairman of the State Rivers & Water Supply Commission in the Australian state of Victoria . But just eight years later he returned to the United States as a professor of agriculture at the University of California , where he was initially chairman of the California Land Settlement Board from 1915 to 1924 and was finally from 1926 to 1936 Bureau of Reclamation , a division of the US Department of the Interior.

In this last position, Mead directed the construction of the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam and the Owyhee Dam.

In 1923 and again in 1927 Elwood Mead went to Palestine to assist the Zionist movement with irrigation and land development planning

Mead died on January 26, 1936 while working in the office.

Honors

  • " Lake Mead " is the name of the reservoir behind the Hoover Dam
  • Honorary Doctorate from Purdue University; the first award of this university (1904)
  • The ship SS "Elwood Mead" was named after him

bibliography

  • Irrigation and Closer Settlement in Australia , in: Australia To-Day , 1910.
  • Irrigation in Victoria , in: AM Laughton & TS Hall: Handbook to Victoria , Albert J. Mullett, Government Printer, Melbourne 1914.

literature

  • Robert E. Rook: An American in Palestine: Elwood Mead and Zionist water resource planning, 1923-1936 , in: Arab Studies Quarterly .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Professor Mead Seriously Injured", in: Los Angeles Herald, No. 256, June 13, 1901, p. 4, http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19010613.2.84
  2. ^ "University Events", in: San Francisco Call, September 27, 1904, p. 4, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1904-09-27/ed-1/seq-4/
  3. ^ Robert E. Rook, "An American in Palestine: Elwood Mead and Zionist Water Resource Planning, 1923-1936," in: Arab Studies Quarterly, Winter 2000, Vol. 22, Issue 1, p. 71, http://web.macam.ac.il/~arnon/Int-ME/water/AN%20AMERICAN%20IN%20PALESTINE.htm
personal data
SURNAME Mead, Elwood
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer, builder of the Hoover Dam
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Patriot , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1936
Place of death Washington, DC