John Charles Lounsbury Fish (June 3, 1870 - June 15, 1962) was a Professor of

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

, Emeritus, at the School of Engineering, Stanford University. He is known for his works ''Mathematics of the Paper Location of a Railroad'' (1905), ''Earthwork Haul and Overhaul: Including Economic Distribution'' (1913), ''Technique of Surveying Instruments and Methods'' (1917), ''Engineering Economics: First Principles...'' (1923), The ''Engineering Method'' (1950), ''Linear Drawing and Lettering for Beginners'', ''Lettering of Working Drawings'', and ''Descriptive Geometry'', and also as a coauthor of ''Technic of Surveying Instruments and Methods'' (with Walter Loring Webb, 1917), ''The Transition Curve...'' (with Charles Lee Crandall), and ''The Engineering Profession'' (with Theodore Jesse Hoover, 1941). Fish provided the critical bridge between the pioneering effort of Arthur M. Wellington in his

engineering economics ''For the application of engineering economics in the practice of civil engineering see Engineering economics (Civil Engineering).'' Engineering economics, previously known as engineering economy, is a subset of economics concerned with the us ...

work of the 1870s and the first publication of the ''Principles of Engineering Economy'' in 1930 by Eugene L. Grant.

Early life and career

John Charles Lounsbury Fish was born on June 3, 1870, in

Erie County, Ohio Erie County is a county located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 75,622. Its county seat is Sandusky. The county is named for the Erie tribe, whose name was their word for "wildcat". ...

, near

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

to Job Fish (1828-1923) and Anna Elizabeth Peabody (1834-1904). He studied at Oberlin academy in 1886 and graduated as a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1892 and was an instructor for another year at that engineering school. In 1894, Fish married Ethelwyn L. Slaught (1867-1951) in

LaPorte, Indiana La Porte (French for "The Door") is a city in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States, of which it is the county seat. Its population was estimated to be 21,341 in 2022. It is one of the two principal cities of the Michigan City-La Porte, India ...

. They had three children, Job (1895-1907) Lounsbury slaught (1899-1987) and Frances Cecelia (1901-1968). Their son Lounsbury was also to be a future

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

civil engineering graduate in 1921. John Charles Lounsbury Fish died in Los Angeles, California on June 15, 1962.Ancestry.com. California, Death Index, 1940-1997 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. :Original data: State of California. California Death Index, 1940-1997. Sacramento, CA, USA: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.

Stanford University (1893-1935)

Fish left Cornell for Stanford University as an instructor in 1893. He became a professor of railroad engineering in 1909 and then of civil engineering in 1925 and civil engineering department chair for 1928-1935 when he retired as emeritus professor of civil engineering.

Civil engineering practice

While Fish was largely an engineering educator, he worked on a variety of civil engineering projects. In 1891, he worked on the construction of the Sandusky and Columbus Short-Line railroad which opened in 1893. In 1899, Fish worked for the

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (abbreviated USC&GS), known from 1807 to 1836 as the Survey of the Coast and from 1836 until 1878 as the United States Coast Survey, was the first scientific agency of the United States Government. It ...

as part of its efforts to produce an accurate

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but historic ...

the State of California. Fish worked on the primary triangulation for

San Jacinto Peak San Jacinto Peak (; often designated Mount San Jacinto) is a peak in the San Jacinto Mountains, in Riverside County, California. Lying within Mount San Jacinto State Park it is the highest both in the range and the county, and serves as the sout ...

and

Santiago Peak Santiago Peak is the southern mountain of the Saddleback landform in Orange County, California. It is the highest and most prominent peak of both the Santa Ana Mountains and Orange County; it also marks a border point with Riverside County. Th ...

. In 1899 he would return to the USGS as a field engineer for exploratory surveys for reservoir and dam sites in

Monterey County, California Monterey County ( ), officially the County of Monterey, is a county located on the Pacific coast in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 439,035. The county's largest city and county seat is Salinas. Monte ...

. Fish also did railway work and from 1900 thru 1909 worked on the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the ...

; first as a resident engineer and then in 1907-09 as a division engineer.

Bibliography

* ''Lettering of Working Drawings'', New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1894. * ''The Transition Curve: by offsets and by deflection angles''.J. Wiley & sons, (1899)
''Mathematics of the Paper Location of a Railroad''
(1905) * ''Coordinates of elementary surveying''. The author, 1909.
''Earth Work Haul and Overhaul Including Economic Distribution''
(1913)
''Engineering Economics, First Principles''
1st edition, (1915) which was the leading text for the next 20 years.Thuesen, Gerald J. "Engineering Economy Pioneers. 5: 1. Accessed a
peer.asee.org
/ref> Fish completely rewrote the second edition in 1923 which proved to be more significant than his first.
''The Engineering Profession''
(1941)
''The Engineering Method''
(1950)

Legacy

Fish was a lifelong member of the

American society of civil engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and the American railway engineering association.

Contributions to engineering economics

Fish's contributions to

in the form of his book ''Engineering Economics: First Principles'' (1915, 1923) provided the critical bridge between the pioneering effort of Arthur M. Wellington in his work of the 1870s on the ''Economic location of railways'' and Eugene L. Grant's work on ''Principles of Engineering Economy'' in the 1930s.Lesser Jr, Arthur. "Aims and content of engineering economy." J. Eng. Educ 44.5 (1954): 307-313. Fish wrote that :"Every engineering structure, with few exceptions, is first suggested by economic requirements; and the design of every part, excepting few, and of the whole is finally judged from the economic standpoint. It is therefore apparent that the so-called principles of design are subordinate to the principles which underlie economic judgment."Fish (1915) Fish wrote his text based upon his belief that to the civil engineer, "... working knowledge of

first principles In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from First Cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nuan ...

is as essential in the economics as in the mechanics' of structures." He also acknowledged influences such as

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

's ''Economic theory of railway location'' (1886); Waddell's ''DePontibus''," Horatio Alvah Foster's (1858-1913)
Engineering Valuation of Public Utilities and Factories

Halbert Powers Gillette's "Cost Data"
and Henry Floy'
"Valuation of Public Utility Properties"
Fish defined engineering economics primarily concerned with matters of economic selection and structure. Fish defined economic selection as a choice based solely upon a "long-run least cost." In modern engineering terminology, meeting a

requirement In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical or functional need that a particular design, product or process aims to satisfy. It is commonly used in a formal sense in engineering design, includi ...

implies some "sort of instrument which... will perform the service" John Charles Lounsbury Fish is also the author of the coordinates of elementary surveying, a book that was first published in 1909.

References

Sources * Fish, L. Warren. (1948). The Fish family in England and America: genealogical and biographical records and sketches. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Pub. Co.. Accessed a

Sec. 203 for Job Fish (Father), Sec. 213 Williston Fish (Brother) Sec. 219 John Lounsbury Fish, page 54. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fish, John Charles Lounsbury American civil engineers American textbook writers

Textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textboo ...

1870 births 1962 deaths Cornell University alumni