Photo of the 1st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering that was held in 1936 in Harvard

This is a photo of the attendees of the 1st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering that was held in 1936 in Harvard. This high-resolution photo was re-published in the January/February 2017 issue of GEOSTRATA and was submitted to Geoengineer.org by its Editor-in-Chief, Dr. James L. Withiam. 

The photo has many of the famous geotechnical engineers at the very beginning of the geotechnical profession. The individuals are identified with numbers and their names are listed at the bottom of the photo.

If you are wondering what papers were published in this conference, and would love to take a look at the proceedings, you now have this opportunity, thanks to the ISSMGE online library. You can find all the papers published in these proceedings here:  https://www.issmge.org/publications/online-library

For example, Karl Terzaghi has 16 papers out of the 171 papers published in this conference. Here they are: 

• The Shearing Resistance of Saturated Soils and the Angle between the Planes of Shear
• Critical Height and Factor of Safety of Slopes Against Sliding
• Stability of Slopes of Natural Clay
• Distribution of the Lateral Pressure of Sand on the Timbering of Cuts
• Effect of the Type of Drainage of Retaining Walls on the Earth Pressure
• Stress Distribution in Dry and in Saturated Sand Above a Yielding Trap-Door
• A Fundamental Fallacy in Earth Pressure Computations
• Failure of Bridge Piers due to Scour
• Simple Tests Determine Hydrostatic Uplift
• General Report and Opening Statements (Report)
• Settlement of Structures (Discussion)
• Earth Pressure Against Retaining Walls, Excavation Sheeting, Tunnel Linings, Etc. (Discussion)
• Methods for Improving the Physical Properties of Soils for Engineering Purposes, Including Recent Developments in Constructing and Compacting Earth Fills (Discussion)
• Modern Methods of Design and Construction of Foundations (Discussion)
• Miscellaneous (Discussion)
• Promotion of Engineering Education, and Standardization of Symbols and Conventions (Discussion)