The Golden Gate Bridge's builders introduced many innovations, but perhaps the most impressive was the precise and efficient technique they used to construct the massive cables.
Before the United States entered World War II, few Americans would have suspected that the territory of Alaska would play a role in America's fight against the Axis powers.
When President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the building of the Alaska Highway in February 1942, the problem of who would actually do the construction quickly arose.
In the early spring of 1942 Alaska's population was approximately 73,000. About half of those residents were Native Alaskans, members of indigenous groups who inhabited Alaska before it was colonized by Russia.
Ruth Gruber went to Alaska under the auspices of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. Gruber describes some of the people she met in Fairbanks, and describes her hopes for bringing settlers to the territory.
In the middle of March 1942, approximately one month after President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the highway, the Army Corps of Engineers began arriving in Alaska.
