George Fillmore Swain

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George F. Swain
NAS George Fillmore Swain.png

George Fillmore Swain (born March 2, 1857 in San Francisco , † July 1, 1931 in New Hampshire ) was an American civil engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Graduate School of Applied Science . He was considered a specialist in traffic structures , especially in rail traffic.

Live and act

After attending a military school, Swain studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston (graduating in 1877) and then for three years at the Berlin Building Academy , with Adolf Goering , Ludwig Hagen and Emil Winkler , among others . From 1880 Swain worked for the 10th United States Census , for which he should collect data on hydropower plants. From 1881 he was a member of the faculty at MIT, first as an assistant to Francis Amasa Walker , from 1883 as an assistant professor , from 1886 as an associate professor . In 1887 Swain received a full professorship at MIT, which he held until 1909 when he moved to the Harvard Graduate School of Applied Science . In 1929 he retired.

Swain was an engineer for the Massachusetts Railroad Commission (among other things to investigate the 1887 Roslindale railway accident and subsequently to regularly inspect more than 2000 railroad structures) and for the Boston Transit Commission in their preparations for the construction of the subway in Boston and in their efforts to eliminate level crossings . He took on other activities, for example, for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , the Royal Commission on Railways and Transportation of Canada and Chicago Elevated . As a delegate of the American Society of Civil Engineers , he participates in the plans to rebuild France after the First World War .

Swain did an excellent job of engineering. He was one of the leading figures of the American Society for Engineering Education , which also awarded him the first Lamme Medal in 1928 . In 1906 he received an honorary doctorate from New York University , and in 1918 from the University of California, Berkeley . In 1929 Swain became an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers . He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1888, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1923 .

Swain was married three times and widowed twice. He had two daughters and a step daughter.

Fonts (selection)

  • Notes on Hydraulics (1885)
  • Notes on Theory of Structures (1893)
  • Report on the Water Power of the Atlantic Watershed
  • Conservation of Water by Storage (1915)
  • How to Study (1917) [ How to Study in Project Gutenberg ( currently not available to users from Germany ) ]
  • The Young Man and Civil Engineering (1922)
  • Strength of Materials (1924)
    • Strength of Materials (1928)
  • Fundamental Properties of Materials (1924)
  • Stresses, Graphical Statistics and Masonry (1927)

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 1.2 MB) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); accessed on January 29, 2017.
  2. ↑ George Swain. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved January 29, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Swain, George Fillmore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Swain, George; Swain, George F.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1931
Place of death New Hampshire