Early Days of Soil Mechanics at MIT
“Early days of Soil Mechanics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology” is described by T. W. Lambe the great teacher in Soil Mechanics, who portrayed some of the people at MIT from 1925 to 1970. These included Terzaghi from 1925, which constituted the birth of Soil Mechanics in MIT and triggered its activities in USA. This was then followed by Glenon Gilboy (1926), Arthur Casagrande (1928) and Leo Jurgenson in 1929. Donald W. Taylor joined the staff in 1933 and became a faculty in 1937. Some of the early students at MIT are Arthur Casagrande, Leo Casagrande, Spencer Buchanan, Phil Rutledge, John Lowe, Tom Leps, James Gould, Joseph Zeitlen, Harl Aldrich, James Mitchell, Za-Chieh Moh, etc. MIT research elucidated fundamentals of Soil Mechanics on particle size and consistency, permeability and capillarity, lateral soil pressures, strength and compressibility, stabilization-soil structure and Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. Excellent Books originated from MIT are Taylor’s “Fundamentals of Soil Mechnics” (1948), T.W. Lambe-Soil Technology (1951) and Lambe and Whitman – Soil Mechanics (1969). Lambe’s Soil Testing and Lambe & Whitman – Soil Mechanics are classical & Bible type texts for all in Soil Mechanics.
