A history of research & development in the army corps of engineers, 1802-2020

The Office of History, HQ, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is preparing a series of survey histories on selected topics on the history of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from the American Revolution to the present. The contractor will research and write a volume in that series focusing on the history of Research & Development in the Army Corps of Engineers from 1802 to 2020.

This approximately 40,000-word volume will trace the history of USACE Research & Development (R&D) from 1802 to the present. This history would cover early research by the Corps of Engineers in the nineteenth century including experimental work initiated at Willet’s Point Engineer School of Application and, later, by the Mississippi River Commission (1879). The bulk of the study will focus on the twentieth century. This period includes research and development conducted at the Engineer School and published in the Occasional Papers before, during, and after the First World War; R&D produced by the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg in the interwar years and beyond; World War II-era research focused on military R&D to include runway and pavement research, weaponry, and Cold Weather Research; the rapid expansion of Corps research in the years after the war to include topographical research, the consolidation of Cold Regions Research, the establishment of the Coastal Engineering Research Center, and renewed focus on Construction Research; “green” environmental research in the 1960s and 70s; and technological and computer R&D in the Information Age to include advances in topographical engineering, Geographic Information System (GIS), and the establishment of the Information Technology Laboratory; and later advances in Civil Works to include the merging of Coastal and Hydraulics Research; the militarization of Geotechnical Research; the growth of Civil Structural Research; and the standup of ERDC.

See the attached Combined Synopsis Solicitation and Performance Work Statement for additional information