More Strauss materials

I've been reading Stephen Cassady's Spanning the Gate and have started John van der Zee's The Gate. van der Zee has managed to see and meet a lot of resources I will never get to know. I wish I had the time.

The recent UL announcement to faculty about library online resources featured the Facts on File History Reference Center. I decided to look up Strauss. They essentially digitized the contents of the Facts on File Encyclopedia of Bridges and Tunnels, 2002. This is where I saw more Strauss bashing. I would not expect an encyclopedia to publish such editorial "facts."

Johnson and Leon used language such as:
"one of the most eccentric bridge builders,"
"curiously" Strauss spent as much time publicizing his affiliation with the bridge as he did working to build it.
"Strauss seemed most intensely focused on making sure no one got credit for building the bridge but he. It was surprising that Strauss seemed so distant from the project after it started since he spent a dozen years lobbying, politicking, cajoling, and sweet-talking anyone in sight to encourage its construction."
"quintessential outsider"
"claiming to be an engineer, possessed neither an engineering degree nor a membership in the American Society of Civil Engineers"
"obsessed with obtaining acceptance and validation"
"since the school [University of Cincinnati] did not have an accredited engineering department, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in its liberal arts school. However one of his areas of study was engineering"
"would continue to write poetry for the balance of his life. Most of it ranged from bad to really bad, indicating Strauss was about as imaginative a poet as he was an innovative bridge designer"
"hogging as much of the limelight as he could"
"penned some of his tortured verse to celebrate the construction of the bridge"

This editorializing is not the usual type of factual encyclopedia entry. I am not impressed with Facts on File.