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Victoria County History

The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of England, and was dedicated to Queen Victoria. In 2012 the project was rededicated to Queen Elizabeth II in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee year. Since 1933 the project has been coordinated by the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London.

History
The history of the VCH falls into three main phases, defined by different funding regimes: an early phase, 1899–1914, when the project was conceived as a commercial enterprise, and progress was rapid; a second more desultory phase, 1914–1947, when relatively little progress was made; and the third phase beginning in 1947, when, under the auspices of the Institute of Historical Research, a high academic standard was set, and progress has been slow but reasonably steady.

These phases have also been characterised by changing attitudes towards the proper scope of English local history. The early volumes were planned on the model of traditional English county histories, with a strong emphasis on manorial descents, the advowsons of parish churches, and the local landed gentry: a prospectus of c. 1904 stated that "there is no Englishman to whom [the VCH] does not in some one or other of its features make a direct appeal". More recent volumes – especially those published since the 1950s – have been more wide-ranging in their approach, and have included systematic coverage of social and economic history, industrial history, population history, educational history, landscape history, religious nonconformity, and so on; individual parish histories have consequently grown considerably in length and complexity.

From 1902 the joint general editors were H. Arthur Doubleday and William Page. Doubleday resigned (in acrimonious circumstances) in 1904, leaving Page as sole general editor until his death in 1934. In 1932 Page bought the rights to the ailing project for a nominal sum, donating it to the Institute of Historical Research the following year. Page was succeeded as general editor by L. F. Salzman, who remained in post until 1949. The early volumes depended heavily on the efforts of a large number of young research workers, mostly female, fresh from degree courses at Oxford, Cambridge, London or the Scottish universities, for whom other employment opportunities were limited: the VCH of this period has been described as "a history for gentlemen largely researched by ladies".

From 1909 until 1931 Frederick Smith, later 2nd Viscount Hambleden, was the VCH's major sponsor. In February 2005 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the VCH £3,374,000 to fund the England's Past for Everyone project, which ran from September that year until February 2010.

Progress
The first VCH volume was published in 1901, and publication continued slowly throughout the 20th century, although in some counties it has come to a halt, especially during the First World War and again in the 1970s. Some inactive counties have recently been reactivated.

There are now more than 230 VCH volumes, with around three new volumes published per year. Each is published with a red cover, and they are therefore sometimes known as "the big red books". When the Institute of Historical Research published a short history of the project to mark the 75th anniversary of taking it over, it was titled The Little Big Red Book. A special edition Jubilee book was published in 2012, A Diamond Jubilee Celebration 1899–2012.

A map showing the publication status appears on the VCH website.

Structure and content of the county histories
From its inception, responsibility for writing the volumes was delegated to local editors for each individual county. The county editors traditionally worked under the direction of a general editor, following a uniform format and style.

In general, the histories begin with one or more volumes of general studies of the county as a whole, including major themes, such as religious history, agriculture, industries, population (with summary tables of decennial census totals 1801–1901), and an introduction to and translation of the relevant section of Domesday Book. These volumes are followed by others consisting of detailed historical surveys of each Hundred, Wapentake (discussed in separate riding volumes) and ward, parish by parish. At first, ancient ecclesiastical parishes formed the unit of investigation, but since the mid-1950s the VCH parish is the civil parish, the modern successor of the ancient parishes or of townships within them. Large towns are dealt with as a whole, including, since the 1960s, built-up areas of adjoining, formerly rural parishes.

Under the original plan, each county, in addition to its general and topographical volumes, was to have a genealogical volume containing the pedigrees of county families. Genealogical volumes were published in a large folio format for Northamptonshire (1906) and Hertfordshire (1907), but the research costs were found to be excessive, and this side of the project was discontinued.

Completed county histories
Some of the county histories have been completed, as follows:

Counties in progress
For each uncompleted county history on which work is continuing (i.e.: "active" in VCH terminology), progress is as follows:

Dormant counties
Several volumes are not currently being worked on.

Counties with no published volumes

 * Northumberland produced its own, non-VCH, history in 15 volumes, published by the Northumberland County History Committee, completed in 1940.
 * Monmouthshire, sometimes regarded between the 16th and 20th centuries as an English county, has never been treated as such by the VCH, and has never been proposed for inclusion within the project. A non-VCH county history of Gwent/Monmouthshire was published by the University of Wales Press in five volumes between 2004 and 2013.
 * Westmorland has not yet produced a VCH volume, but the area is included within the VCH Cumbria project.

General editors

 * William Page (General Editor 1904–34)
 * Louis Francis Salzman (General Editor 1934–49)
 * Ralph Pugh (General Editor 1949–77)
 * Christopher Elrington (General Editor 1977–94)
 * Christopher Currie (General Editor 1994–2000)
 * Anthony Fletcher (General Editor/Director 2000–2005)
 * John Beckett (General Editor/Director 2005–2010)
 * Elizabeth Williamson (Executive Editor 2010–2014)
 * Richard Hoyle (General Editor/Director 2014–2016)
 * Catherine Clarke (Director 2019–present)

Notable county editors

 * William Page (Somerset, also general editor)
 * David Crouch (Yorkshire, East Riding)
 * Peter Ditchfield (Berkshire)
 * Mary Lobel (Oxfordshire)
 * Susan Reynolds (Middlesex)
 * J. Horace Round (Essex)
 * John William Willis-Bund (Worcestershire)
 * Oswald Barron (general editor of the genealogical volumes for Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire)

Notable contributors

 * Mary Bateson
 * Madeleine Hope Dodds (contributed to Durham)
 * Charles Reed Peers (Architectural Editor, 1903–10)
 * Maud Sellars (contributed to Yorkshire, Durham)
 * Ethel Stokes (contributed to Essex)
 * Margerie Venables Taylor

Online availability
Much of the content of the older VCH volumes is now accessible via the British History Online digital library, digitised by double rekeying. Priority has been given to the topographical volumes containing histories of individual parishes. The more general introductory volumes are excluded for the time being, with the exception of those sections covering the religious houses of each county.

title: Victoria County History


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English Place-Name Society

The English Place-Name Society (EPNS) is a learned society concerned with toponomastics and the toponymy of England, in other words, the study of place-names (toponyms).

Its scholars aim to explain the origin and history of the names they study, taking into account factors such as the meaning of the elements out of which they were created (whether from the principal endemic tongues Old English, early Welsh, Danish, Norwegian, Cornish, Latin, Norman French – or others); the topography, geology and ecology of the places bearing the names; and the general and local history and culture of England.

History
In 1922 Professor Allen Mawer read a paper to the British Academy about setting up an English place-name survey. He obtained the formal and financial support of the academy. Within a year he had brought into being a society composed of interested persons, provided it with a constitution and laid down the lines of its future conduct. The headquarters of the Society were first at the University of Liverpool, where Mawer was professor of English language. The publications of the society began in 1924 with two volumes, a collection of essays and a dictionary of place-name elements. Mawer and Aileen Armstrong acted as general editors for the annual volumes of county place-name surveys. Starting in 1929 J. E. B. Gover collected material and was sub-editor of the volumes.

In 1929 Professor Mawer was appointed provost of University College, London and the society moved there at the end of the year. When World War II came the society moved briefly to University College, Aberystwyth, back to London, and then to Stansted Bury, Stanstead Abbotts in east Hertfordshire. In July 1942 Sir Allen Mawer died, and Sir Frank Stenton became general editor. The society moved to the University of Reading until 1946. When Professor Bruce Dickins succeeded as honorary director, the society moved to the University of Cambridge, and Miss Margaret Midgley (later Dr Margaret Gelling) was appointed research assistant.

When Professor Hugh Smith assumed the position of honorary director in 1951, University College, London, became once more the society's headquarters, with Margaret Midgley continuing research there until 1953. Hugh Smith produced two new "Elements" volumes and 14 others on county place-names. On his death in 1967 Professor Kenneth Cameron became honorary director and the society's offices were split between London and Nottingham, where the university provided room for the library and archives, as well as the services of a secretary. In 1972 the society moved completely to Nottingham, where it remains at the Centre for Name Studies. Victor Watts became honorary director in 1992 until his death in 2002, when he was succeeded by Professor Richard Coates.

The survey has been consistently supported, morally and practically, by the British Academy; and from 2005 to 2010 was supported by a large grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Research breakthroughs
From the 1960s detailed comparison of distributions of the place-name types which had been thought to be early Saxon – and of archaeological evidence – has produced a re-written interpretation of some. The net effect, statistically, has been to find an original bias towards Anglo-Saxon. This means more names re-attributed, than the reverse, have been shown to be more likely Celtic. In particular, Kenneth Jackson contributed to much of the research, identification and morphology of Celtic names.

Traditional county or county subdivision publications
The Society divides England firstly by traditional counties. The vast majority (or more convenient subdivisions) are sequentially covered in 96 volumes of the Survey of English Place-Names, although the earlier volumes are less detailed. These are used mainly by scholars and academia. The volumes for Warwickshire and much of Yorkshire (the North and East Ridings and parts of the West Riding) are available free of charge on the society's website. In 2016, the Society published its first volume in the "Popular Series", on the county of Suffolk.

Other publications
By 2018 the society had published a range of other books and booklets by category (e.g. field-names), and some county dictionaries aimed mainly at a non-specialist audience.

The Society is publishing a 2010s series of booklets on place-name elements, running in to the 2020s.

Since 1969, the Society has published an annual Journal, which contains essays on various place-name topics.

Substantial citation
EPNS material was used as the basis of The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, published in 2004.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: English Place-Name Society


text:
EPNS

EPNS may refer to:

 * Electroplated nickel silver
 * English Place-Name Society

title: EPNS


text:
Freedom Summer

Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. Blacks had been restricted from voting since the turn of the century due to barriers to voter registration and other laws. The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers such as libraries, in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local Black population.

The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and SCLC). Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from SNCC. Bob Moses, SNCC field secretary and co-director of COFO, directed the summer project.

Freedom Vote
Freedom Summer was built on the years of earlier work by thousands of African Americans, connected through their churches, who lived in Mississippi. In 1963, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a mock "Freedom Vote" designed to demonstrate the will of Black Mississippians to vote, if not impeded by terror and intimidation. The Mississippi voting registration procedure at the time required Blacks to fill out a 21-question registration form and to answer, to the satisfaction of the white registrators, a question on the interpretation of any one of 285 sections of the state constitution. The registrars ruled subjectively on the applicant's qualifications, and decided against most blacks, not allowing them to register.

In 1963, volunteers set up polling places in Black churches and business establishments across Mississippi. After registering on a simple registration form, voters would select candidates to run in the following year's election. Candidates included Rev. Ed King of Tougaloo College and Aaron Henry, from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Local civil rights workers and volunteers, along with students from northern and western universities, organized and implemented the mock election, in which tens of thousands voted.

February 1964 planning
By 1964, students and others had begun the process of integrating public accommodations, registering adults to vote, and above all strengthening a network of local leadership. Building on the efforts of 1963 (including the Freedom Vote and registration efforts in Greenwood), Moses prevailed over doubts among SNCC and COFO workers, and planning for Freedom Summer began in February 1964. Speakers recruited for workers on college campuses across the country, drawing standing ovations for their dedication in braving the routine violence perpetrated by police, sheriffs, and others in Mississippi. SNCC recruiters interviewed dozens of potential volunteers, weeding out those with a "John Brown complex" and informing others that their job that summer would not be to "save the Mississippi Negro" but to work with local leadership to develop the grassroots movement.

More than 1,000 out-of-state volunteers participated in Freedom Summer alongside thousands of black Mississippians. Volunteers were the brightest of their generation, who came from the best universities from the biggest states, mostly from cities in the North (e.g., Chicago, New York City, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) and West (e.g., Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, etc.), usually were rich, 90 percent were white. About half of them were Jewish. Though SNCC's committee agreed to recruit only one hundred white students for the project in December 1963, Jewish civil rights leaders such as Allard Lowenstein went on and recruited a much larger number of white volunteers, to bring more attention. Two one-week orientation sessions for the volunteers were held at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio (now part of Miami University), from June 14 to June 27, after Berea College backed out of hosting the sessions due to alumni pressure against it.

Organizers focused on Mississippi because it had the lowest percentage of any state in the country of African Americans registered to vote, and they constituted more than one-third of the population. In 1962 only 6.7% of eligible black voters were registered.

Southern states had effectively disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites in the period from 1890 to 1910 by passing state constitutions, amendments and other laws that imposed burdens on voter registration: charging poll taxes, requiring literacy tests administered subjectively by white registrars, making residency requirements more difficult, as well as elaborate record keeping to document required items. They maintained this exclusion of blacks from politics well into the 1960s, which extended to excluding them from juries and imposing Jim Crow segregation laws for public facilities.

Most of these methods survived US Supreme Court challenges and, if overruled, states had quickly developed new ways to exclude blacks, such as use of grandfather clauses and white primaries. In some cases, would-be voters were harassed economically, as well as by physical assault. Lynchings had been high at the turn of the century and continued for years.

During the ten weeks of Freedom Summer, a number of other organizations provided support for the COFO Summer Project. More than 100 volunteer doctors, nurses, psychologists, medical students and other medical professionals from the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) provided emergency care for volunteers and local activists, taught health education classes, and advocated improvements in Mississippi's segregated health system.

Volunteer lawyers from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Inc ("Ink Fund"), National Lawyers Guild, Lawyer's Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC) an arm of the ACLU, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCR) provided free legal services — handling arrests, freedom of speech, voter registration and other matters.

The Commission on Religion and Race (CORR), an endeavor of the National Council of Churches (NCC), brought Christian and Jewish clergy and divinity students to Mississippi to support the work of the Summer Project. In addition to offering traditional religious support to volunteers and activists, the ministers and rabbis engaged in voting rights protests at courthouses, recruited voter applicants and accompanied them to register, taught in Freedom Schools, and performed office and other support functions.

Violence
Many of Mississippi's white residents deeply resented the outsiders and any attempt to change the residents' society. Locals routinely harassed volunteers. The volunteers' presence in local black communities drew drive-by shootings, Molotov cocktails thrown at host homes, and constant harassment. State and local governments, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (which was tax-supported and spied on citizens), police, White Citizens' Council, and Ku Klux Klan used arrests, arson, beatings, evictions, firing, murder, spying, and other forms of intimidation and harassment to oppose the project and prevent blacks from registering to vote or achieve social equality.

Over the course of the ten-week project:
 * 1,062 people were arrested (out-of-state volunteers and locals)
 * 80 Freedom Summer workers were beaten
 * 37 churches were bombed or burned
 * 30 Black homes or businesses were bombed or burned
 * 4 civil rights workers were killed (one in a head-on collision)
 * 4 people were critically wounded
 * At least 3 Mississippi blacks were murdered because of their support for the Civil Rights Movement

Volunteers were attacked almost as soon as the campaign started. On June 21, 1964, James Chaney (a black Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] activist from Mississippi), Andrew Goodman (a summer volunteer), and Michael Schwerner (a CORE organizer) - both Jews from New York City - were arrested by Cecil Price, a Neshoba County deputy sheriff and KKK member. The three were held in jail until after nightfall, then released. They drove away into an ambush on the road by Klansmen, who abducted and killed them. Goodman and Schwerner were shot at point-blank range. Chaney was chased, beaten mercilessly, and shot three times. After weeks of searching in which federal law enforcement participated, on August 4, 1964, their bodies were found to have been buried in an earthen dam. The men's disappearance the night of their release from jail was reported on TV and on newspaper front pages, shocking the nation. It drew massive media attention to Freedom Summer and to Mississippi's "closed society."

When the men went missing, SNCC and COFO workers began phoning the FBI requesting an investigation. The parents of the missing children were able to put so much pressure on Washington that meetings with President Johnson and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were arranged. Finally, after some 36 hours, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the FBI to get involved in the search. FBI agents began swarming around Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner had been arrested after they had investigated the burning of a local black church that was a center for political organizing. For the next seven weeks, FBI agents and sailors from a nearby naval airbase searched for the bodies, wading into swamps and hacking through underbrush. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover went to Mississippi on July 10 to open the first FBI branch office there.

Throughout the search, Mississippi newspapers and word-of-mouth perpetuated the common belief that the disappearance was "a hoax" designed to draw publicity. The search of rivers and swamps turned up the bodies of eight other blacks who appeared to have been murdered: a boy and seven men. Herbert Oarsby, a 14-year-old youth, was found wearing a CORE T-shirt. Charles Eddie Moore was among 600 students expelled in April 1964 from Alcorn A&M for participating in civil rights protests. After he returned home, he was abducted and killed by KKK members in Franklin County, Mississippi on May 2, 1964 with his friend Henry Hezekiah Dee. The other five men were never identified. When they disappeared, their families could not get local law enforcement to investigate.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
With participation in the regular Mississippi Democratic Party blocked by segregationists, COFO established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as a non-exclusionary rival to the regular party organization. It intended to gain recognition of the MFDP by the national Democratic Party as the legitimate party organization in Mississippi. Delegates were elected to go to the Democratic national convention to be held that year.

Before the convention was held, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson gained passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

When the forces of white supremacy continued to block black voter registration, the Summer Project switched to building the MFDP. Though the MFDP challenge had wide support among many convention delegates, Lyndon B. Johnson feared losing Southern support in the coming campaign. He did not allow the MFDP to replace the regulars, but the continuing issue of political oppression in Mississippi was covered widely by the national press.

Freedom Schools
In addition to voter registration and the MFDP, the Summer Project also established a network of 30 to 40 voluntary summer schools – called "Freedom Schools," an educational program proposed by SNCC member, Charlie Cobb – as an alternative to Mississippi's totally segregated and underfunded schools for blacks. Over the course of the summer, more than 3,500 students attended Freedom Schools, which taught subjects that the public schools avoided, such as black history and constitutional rights.

Freedom Schools were held in churches, on back porches, and under the trees of Mississippi. Students ranged from small children to elderly adults, with the average age around 15. Most of the volunteer teachers were college students. Under the direction of Spelman College professor Staughton Lynd, the goal was to teach voter literacy, and political organization skills, as well as academic skills, and to help with confidence. The curriculum was directly linked to the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As Ed King, who ran for Lieutenant Governor on the MFDP ticket, stated, "Our assumption was that the parents of the Freedom School children, when we met them at night, that the Freedom Democratic Party would be the PTA."

The Freedom Schools operated on a basis of close interaction and mutual trust between teachers and students. The core curriculum focused on basic literacy and arithmetic, black history and current status, political processes, civil rights, and the freedom movement. The content varied from place to place and day to day according to the questions and interests of the students.

The volunteer Freedom School teachers were as profoundly affected by their experience as were the students. Pam Parker, a teacher in the Holly Springs school, wrote of the experience:

"The atmosphere in the class is unbelievable. It is what every teacher dreams about — real, honest enthusiasm and desire to learn anything and everything. The girls come to class of their own free will. They respond to everything that is said. They are excited about learning. They drain me of everything that I have to offer so that I go home at night completely exhausted but very happy in spirit ..."

Freedom Libraries
Approximately fifty Freedom libraries were established throughout Mississippi. These libraries provided library services and literacy guidance for many African Americans, some who had never had access to libraries before. Freedom Libraries ranged in size from a few hundred volumes to more than 20,000. The Freedom Libraries operated on small budgets and were usually run by volunteers. Some libraries were housed in newly constructed facilities while others were located in abandoned buildings.

Freedom Houses
The volunteers were housed by local black families who refused to be intimidated by segregationist threats of violence. However, project organizers were unable to place all the volunteers in private homes. To accommodate the overflow, the remaining volunteers were placed either in the project office or in Freedom Houses. Volunteers believed that it was important to free themselves from their race and class backgrounds, so the Freedom Houses would become places where cultural exchange would happen, so the Freedom Houses were free from segregation.

Of course, the practice of group living was already well established among American college students, for example, and soon the houses became communal living centers. Freedom houses also played a significant role in the volunteers' sexual activities during the summer. They considered themselves free from the restraints of racism and consequently free to truly love one another. As such, for many of them, interracial sex became the ultimate expression of SNCC ideology, which emphasized the notions of freedom and equality. At the beginning of the summer the Freedom Houses were places to accommodate the overflow of volunteers, but in the eyes of volunteers by the end of summer they had become structural and symbolical expressions of the link between personal and political change. One volunteer said:

"You never knew what was going to happen [in the Freedom Houses] from one minute to the next ... I slept on the cot ... on a kind of side porch ... and ... I'd drag in some nights and there'd ... be a wild party raging on the porch. So I'd drag my cot off in search of a quiet corner ... [only to find] an intense philosophical discussion going on in one corner ... people making peanut butter sandwiches-always peanut butter ... in another ... [And] some soap opera ... romantic entanglement being played out in another ... It was real three-ring circus"

Aftermath
Freedom Summer did not succeed in getting many voters registered, but it had a significant effect on the course of the Civil Rights Movement. It helped break down the decades of isolation and repression that had supported the Jim Crow system. Before Freedom Summer, the national news media had paid little attention to the persecution of black voters in the Deep South and the dangers endured by black civil rights workers. The events that summer had captured national attention (as had the mass protests and demonstrations in previous years). Some black activists felt the media had reacted only because northern white students were killed and felt embittered. Many blacks also felt the white students were condescending and paternalistic to the local people and were ascending to an inappropriate dominance over the civil rights movement. Leading up to the November 1964 election, repression persisted in Mississippi, with nuisance arrests, beatings, and church burnings continuing. The discontent with the white students and the increasing need for armed defense against segregationists helped create demand for a black power direction in SNCC.

Many of the volunteers have recounted that the summer was one of the defining periods of their lives. They had trouble readjusting to life outside Mississippi. They came with a positive image of the government, but the events of the Freedom Summer upset this simplistic distinction between 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. They saw that those two ideas were linked together. They experienced such lawlessness that they became critical toward American society and federal agencies, like the FBI. Most of the volunteers became politicized in Mississippi. They left intent on carrying on the fight in the North. After that summer, many Christians faced a religious crisis. Personal transformation of volunteers led to social changes. It increased student activity in the civil rights movement. These students also played a role later in the resurgence of leftist activism in the United States.

Long-term volunteers staffed the COFO and SNCC offices throughout Mississippi. After the flood of summer workers in 1964, their leadership decided that projects should continue the following summer, but under the direction of local leadership. This was challenged by Northern establishment members of the coalition, beginning with Americans for Democratic Action, who also disapproved of the MFDP. This encouraged the NAACP to withdraw from COFO, both because they did not want to anger liberal Democrats, and because they resented the organizational competition from SNCC. After the MFDP was denied voting status at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Bob Moses was deeply disillusioned and bowed out of both MFDP and COFO. COFO collapsed in 1965, leaving organizing priorities to be set by locals.

Among many notable veterans of Freedom Summer were Heather Booth, Marshall Ganz, and Mario Savio. After the summer, Heather Booth returned to Illinois, where she became a founder of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union and later the Midwest Academy. Marshall Ganz returned to California, where he worked for many years on the staff of the United Farm Workers. He later taught organizing strategies. In 2008 he played a crucial role in organizing Barack Obama's field staff for the campaign. Mario Savio returned to the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a leader of the Free Speech Movement.

In Mississippi, controversy raged over the three murders. Mississippi state and local officials did not indict anyone. The FBI continued to investigate. Agents infiltrated the KKK and paid informers to reveal secrets of their "klaverns". In the fall of 1964, informants told the FBI about the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner. On December 4, the FBI arrested 19 men as suspects. All were freed on a technicality, starting a three-year battle to bring them to justice. In October 1967, the men, including the Klan's Imperial Wizard Samuel Bowers, who had allegedly ordered the murders, went on trial in the federal courthouse in Meridian. Seven were ultimately convicted of federal crimes related to the murders. All were sentenced to 3–10 years, but none served more than six years. This marked the first time since Reconstruction era that white men had been convicted of civil rights violations against blacks in Mississippi.

Mississippi began to make some racial progress but white supremacy was resilient, especially in rural areas. In 1965 Congress passed the federal Voting Rights Act, which provided for federal oversight and enforcement to facilitate registration and voting in areas of historically low turnout. Mississippi's legislature passed several laws to dilute the power of black votes. Only with Supreme Court rulings and more than a decade of cooling did black voting become a reality in Mississippi. The seeds planted during Freedom Summer bore fruit in the 1980s and 1990s, when Mississippi elected more black officials than any other state. Since redistricting in 2003, Mississippi has had four congressional districts. Mississippi's 2nd congressional district, covering a concentration of black population in the western part of the state, including the Mississippi Delta, is black majority.

Renewed investigation of the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner led to a trial by the state in 2005. As a result of investigative reporting by Jerry Mitchell (an award-winning reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger), high school teacher Barry Bradford, and three of his students from Illinois (Brittany Saltiel, Sarah Siegel, and Allison Nichols), Edgar Ray Killen, one of the leaders of the killings and a former Ku Klux Klan klavern recruiter, was indicted for murder. He was convicted of three counts of manslaughter. The Killen verdict was announced on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime. Killen's lawyers appealed the verdict, but his sentence of 3 times 20 years in prison was upheld on January 12, 2007, in a hearing by the Supreme Court of Mississippi.

title: Freedom Summer


text:
Maison du Roi

The Maison du Roi (, 'King's Household') was the royal household of the King of France. It comprised the military, domestic, and religious entourage of the French royal family during the Ancien Régime and Bourbon Restoration.

Organisation
The exact composition and duties of its various divisions changed constantly over the Early Modern period. Officers of the Maison du Roi were directly responsible to the Grand maître de France (Chief Steward). Starting in the 16th century and then from the 17th century on, the Maison du Roi was overseen by a ministry, the Département de la Maison du Roi, directed by a secretary of state, the Secrétaire d'État à la Maison du Roi. The structure of the Maison du Roi was officially reorganized under Henry III in 1578 and 1585, and in the 17th century by Jean-Baptiste Colbert.

The Military Maison du Roi
The military branch of the Maison du Roi was the French Army Lifeguard brigade, made up of cavalry and infantry units. Officer rank was only open to gentlemen, though some of its units were drawn from elite troops among commoners in the rest of the army. It was not ceremonial and participated in all of France's 16th- and 17th-century campaigns.

The Religious Maison du Roi
The Ecclesiastical Household of the king was headed by the Grand Almoner of France (Grand aumônier de France) (created by Francis I), most often a bishop. The king's chapel (la chapelle du roi)—which did not originally refer to a building, but to the religious entourage of the king—was in charge of the Mass and religious ceremonies (marriages, baptisms) for the sovereign and the royal family and the king's alms and public charities.

It was headed by the Grand Almoner, who was assisted by the First Almoner, who fulfilled the duties of the Grand Almoner when the latter was unable to. Other officers of the Maison ecclésiastique included several aumôniers ordinaires (who maintained the regular service of the chapel), the prédicateur du roi (or "king's preacher"), who preached in the presence of the king, and the king's confessor.

The royal chapel also included a group of ecclesiastics and musicians for the religious services, divided into two sections: the chapel and oratory (chapelle et oratoire)—directed by the master of the Oratory (sous-maître de l'Oratoire)—which celebrated spoken Masses, and the grande chapelle—directed by the master of the chapel (maître de la chapelle)—which celebrated Masses in plainchant. In the reign of Louis XV, the musicians of the two chapels were united. Oversight was eventually transferred (in 1761) from the Ecclesiastical household to the King's Chamber, and the position of master of the chapel was eliminated.

The Domestic Maison du Roi
The Maison du Roi civile, or domestic entourage of the king, was divided into a number of departments, whose number varied over the years. Under Louis XIV it consisted of 22 departments. Each department was directed by the grands officiers de la maison du roi de France (a title similar to, but not the same as, grand officier de la couronne de France). From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the Maison du Roi civile consisted of around 1000–2000 individuals.

The most important departments were the following:

The "Bouche du roi"
The largest of the departments, the Bouche du roi oversaw the meals of the king. It was run by the Premier Maître d'hôtel. The seven offices of the department were: Officers included the Maître d'hôtel ordinaire, the 12 Maîtres d'hôtel servant par quartier, the Grand panetier, the Premier écuyer tranchant and the Grand échanson (three offices that had become purely honorific in the Early Modern period), and the 36 gentleman servants.
 * gobelet: wine and drink, run by the Grand Bouteiller
 * cuisine-bouche: cuisine
 * paneterie: bakers
 * échansonnerie
 * cuisine-commun
 * fruiterie: fruits
 * fourrière

The King's Chamber
Directed by the Grand Chambrier of France or Grand Chambellan of France, this department oversaw the king's rooms and his personal escort. After the Bouche du roi, it was the second largest. It consisted of four First Gentlemen of the chambre, the gentlemen of the chambre, the valets de chambre, the pages, the huissiers and the children of honor. Their proximity to the king made these charges particularly esteemed.

The "Menus-Plaisirs"
The complete name of this department was argenterie, menus plaisirs et affaires de la chambre du roi ("silver, small entertainments and affairs of the king's chamber"). The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi was in charge of theater decor, costumes and props for plays, ballets and other court entertainments. It was run by an intendant.

The Ceremonies
Created in 1585 by Henry III, this service was in charge of public ceremonies such as: baptisms, marriages and royal funerals, coronations and the "sacre" (or anointment), royal entries into towns, royal festivals, ambassadorial receptions, États généraux, etc. It was run by the Grand maître des cérémonies, assisted by the maître and the aide of cérémonies.

The Royal Stables
Divided in 1582 into two parts:
 * the Grande Écurie, run by the Grand écuyer of France, called « M. le Grand », who oversaw the transport of the king and his ceremonial entourage (heralds, men of arms, musicians, etc.)
 * the Petite Écurie, run by the premier écuyer, called « M. le Premier », comprising squires, pages, foot valets, coaches, harnesses, saddles and coachmen.

The Venery
This was the king's hunting service, run by the Grand Veneur (the Master of the Hunt and Royal Game Warden), consisted of the vénerie (hunting on horseback), louveterie (wolf hunting, run by the Grand Louvetier), falcon hunting (run by the Grand Falconer) and the vautrait (boar hunting, run by the Capitaine du vautrait or Capitaine des toiles).

Great Officers of the Royal Household
The major offices of the royal household are sometimes listed as the grands officiers de la maison du roi de France, not to be confused with the Great Officers of the Crown of France, with which it overlaps in part. Although lists of the Great Officers vary, the following are generally considered Great Officers of the Royal Household:

Domestic household:
 * Grand Maître de France (also one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France)
 * the First Maître d'hôtel (Chief Butler) - overseeing the king's table and the bouches du roi
 * the Grand Panetier of France, overseeing bread
 * the Grand Échanson de France, overseeing wine
 * the First "Écuyer tranchant", who cuts the meat of the king
 * the Grand Chambrier of France or the Grand Chambellan of France, head of the King's chambre, (also one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France)
 * the four First gentlemen of the King's Chamber, who oversee the King's chambre
 * the four First Valets of the King's Chamber, who oversee, under the direction of the first gentlemen, the King's chambre
 * the Grand Maître de la garde-robe, who oversees the King's wardrobe
 * the Grand Écuyer de France, the head stablemaster (also one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France)
 * the first écuyer de France, who seconds the Grand écuyer
 * the Grand Huntsman of France (Grand Veneur), who directs royal hunts, especially the stag hunt
 * the Grand Falconer of France, who directs royal hunts using birds of prey
 * the Grand Louvetier of France, who directs royal hunts of wolves and boar
 * the Grand Master of Ceremonies of France (grand maître des cérémonies), who directs court ceremonies and protocol
 * the Grand Marshal of lodging (maréchal des logis), who oversees lodging of the king, of the court and of the royal household
 * the Grand Provost of France, who heads the court police, and for this purpose, has jurisdiction over the military troops of the Maison du Roi
 * the Grand Almoner of France, at the head of the royal chapel and the head of the Ecclesiastical House of the King (the maison ecclésiastique du roi de France)
 * the first Almoner of France, who aids the Grand Almoner

Military household:
 * Captain of the bodyguard
 * Captain-colonel of the Cent-Suisses
 * Colonel General of the Suisses et Grisons
 * Captain-colonel of the guards of the king's door
 * Captain-lieutenant of the gendarmes of the guard
 * Captain-lieutenant of the chevau-légers (light cavalry) of the guard
 * Colonel General of the Musketeers of the guard
 * Captain-lieutenant of the first company of the Musketeers of the guard
 * Captain-lieutenant of the grenadiers à cheval of the guard

The Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi
Starting in the 16th century and then from the 17th century on, the Maison du Roi was overseen by a ministry, the Département de la Maison du Roi. This ministry was directed by a secretary of state, the Secrétaire d'État à la Maison du Roi, although this oversight was purely formal, as the officers of the Maison du Roi were under the direct authority of the Grand maître de France (Chief Steward of France).

In practice, the military branch of the Maison du Roi was run by the Minister of War. The Secrétaire d'État à la Maison du Roi was, however, in charge of recruiting officers for the Maison du Roi and would receive prospective applications for posts and submit them to the king for his approval.

title: Maison du Roi


text:
Pontoon bridge

A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry.

Most pontoon bridges are temporary and used in wartime and civil emergencies. There are permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use that can carry highway traffic. Permanent floating bridges are useful for sheltered water crossings if it is not considered economically feasible to suspend a bridge from anchored piers. Such bridges can require a section that is elevated or can be raised or removed to allow waterborne traffic to pass.

Pontoon bridges have been in use since ancient times and have been used to great advantage in many battles throughout history, such as the Battle of Garigliano, the Battle of Oudenarde, the crossing of the Rhine during World War II, the Iran–Iraq War's Operation Dawn 8, and most recently, in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, after crossings over the Dnipro River had been destroyed.

Definition
A pontoon bridge is a collection of specialized, shallow draft boats or floats, connected together to cross a river or canal, with a track or deck attached on top. The water buoyancy supports the boats, limiting the maximum load to the total and point buoyancy of the pontoons or boats. The supporting boats or floats can be open or closed, temporary or permanent in installation, and made of rubber, metal, wood, or concrete. The decking may be temporary or permanent, and constructed out of wood, modular metal, or asphalt or concrete over a metal frame.

Etymology
The spelling "ponton" in English dates from at least 1870. The use continued in references found in U.S. patents during the 1890s. It continued to be spelled in that fashion through World War II, when temporary floating bridges were used extensively throughout the European theatre. U.S. combat engineers commonly pronounced the word "ponton" rather than "pontoon" and U.S. military manuals spelled it using a single 'o'. The U.S. military differentiated between the bridge itself ("ponton") and the floats used to provide buoyancy ("pontoon"). The original word was derived from Old French ponton, from Latin ponto ("ferryboat"), from pons ("bridge").

Design
When designing a pontoon bridge, the civil engineer must take into consideration the Archimedes' principle: Each pontoon can support a load equal to the mass of the water that it displaces. This load includes the mass of the bridge and the pontoon itself. If the maximum load of a bridge section is exceeded, one or more pontoons become submerged. Flexible connections have to allow for one section of the bridge to be weighted down more heavily than the other parts. The roadway across the pontoons should be relatively light, so as not to limit the carrying capacity of the pontoons.

The connection of the bridge to shore requires the design of approaches that are not too steep, protect the bank from erosion and provide for movements of the bridge during (tidal) changes of the water level.

Floating bridges were historically constructed using wood. Pontoons were formed by simply lashing several barrels together, by rafts of timbers, or by using boats. Each bridge section consisted of one or more pontoons, which were maneuvered into position and then anchored underwater or on land. The pontoons were linked together using wooden stringers called balks. The balks were covered by a series of cross planks called chesses to form the road surface, and the chesses were secured with side guard rails.

A floating bridge can be built in a series of sections, starting from an anchored point on the shore. Modern pontoon bridges usually use pre-fabricated floating structures.

Most pontoon bridges are designed for temporary use, but bridges across water bodies with a constant water level can remain in place much longer. Hobart Bridge, a long pontoon bridge built 1943 in Hobart, was only replaced after 21 years. The fourth Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey was built in 1912 and operated for 80 years.

Provisional and lightweight pontoon bridge are easily damaged. The bridge can be dislodged or inundated when the load limit of the bridge is exceeded. The bridge can be induced to sway or oscillate in a hazardous manner from the swell, from a storm, a flood or a fast moving load. Ice or floating objects (flotsam) can accumulate on the pontoons, increasing the drag from river current and potentially damaging the bridge. See below for floating pontoon failures and disasters.

Ancient China
In ancient China, the Zhou dynasty Chinese text of the Shi Jing (Book of Odes) records that King Wen of Zhou was the first to create a pontoon bridge in the 11th century BC. However, the historian Joseph Needham has pointed out that in all likely scenarios, the temporary pontoon bridge was invented during the 9th or 8th century BC in China, as this part was perhaps a later addition to the book (considering how the book had been edited up until the Han dynasty, 202 BC – 220 AD). Although earlier temporary pontoon bridges had been made in China, the first secure and permanent ones (and linked with iron chains) in China came first during the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC). The later Song dynasty (960–1279 AD) Chinese statesman Cao Cheng once wrote of early pontoon bridges in China (spelling of Chinese in Wade-Giles format):

"The Chhun Chhiu Hou Chuan says that in the 58th year of the Zhou King Nan (257 BC), there was invented in the Qin State the floating bridge (fou chhiao) with which to cross rivers. But the Ta Ming ode in the Shih Ching (Book of Odes) says (of King Wen) that he 'joined boats and made of them a bridge' over the River Wei. Sun Yen comments that this shows that the boats were arranged in a row, like the beams (of a house) with boards laid (transversely) across them, which is just the same as the pontoon bridge of today. Tu Yu also thought this. ... Cheng Khang Chheng says that the Zhou people invented it and used it whenever they had occasion to do so, but the Qin people, to whom they handed it down, were the first to fasten it securely together (for permanent use)."

During the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD), the Chinese created a very large pontoon bridge that spanned the width of the Yellow River. There was also the rebellion of Gongsun Shu in 33 AD, where a large pontoon bridge with fortified posts was constructed across the Yangtze River, eventually broken through with ramming ships by official Han troops under Commander Cen Peng. During the late Eastern Han into the Three Kingdoms period, during the Battle of Chibi in 208 AD, the Prime Minister Cao Cao once linked the majority of his fleet together with iron chains, which proved to be a fatal mistake once he was thwarted with a fire attack by Sun Quan's fleet.

The armies of Emperor Taizu of Song had a large pontoon bridge built across the Yangtze River in 974 in order to secure supply lines during the Song dynasty's conquest of the Southern Tang.

On October 22, 1420, Ghiyasu'd-Din Naqqah, the official diarist of the embassy sent by the Timurid ruler of Persia, Mirza Shahrukh (r. 1404–1447), to the Ming dynasty of China during the reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424), recorded his sight and travel over a large floating pontoon bridge at Lanzhou (constructed earlier in 1372) as he crossed the Yellow River on this day. He wrote that it was: "... composed of twenty three boats, of great excellence and strength attached together by a long chain of iron as thick as a man's thigh, and this was moored on each side to an iron post as thick as a man's waist extending a distance of ten cubits on the land and planted firmly in the ground, the boats being fastened to this chain by means of big hooks. There were placed big wooden planks over the boats so firmly and evenly that all the animals were made to pass over it without difficulty."

Greco-Roman era
The Greek writer Herodotus in his Histories, records several pontoon bridges. Emperor Caligula built a 2 mi bridge at Baiae in 37 AD. For Emperor Darius I The Great of Persia (522–485 BC), the Greek Mandrocles of Samos once engineered a 2 km pontoon bridge that stretched across the Bosporus, linking Asia to Europe, so that Darius could pursue the fleeing Scythians as well as move his army into position in the Balkans to overwhelm Macedon. Other spectacular pontoon bridges were Xerxes' Pontoon Bridges across the Hellespont by Xerxes I in 480 BC to transport his huge army into Europe:

"and meanwhile other chief-constructors proceeded to make the bridges; and thus they made them: They put together fifty-oared galleys and triremes, three hundred and sixty to be under the bridge towards the Euxine Sea, and three hundred and fourteen to be under the other, the vessels lying in the direction of the stream of the Hellespont (though crosswise in respect to the Pontus), to support the tension of the ropes. They placed them together thus, and let down very large anchors, those on the one side towards the Pontus because of the winds which blow from within outwards, and on the other side, towards the West and the Egean, because of the South-East and South Winds. They left also an opening for a passage through, so that any who wished might be able to sail into the Pontus with small vessels, and also from the Pontus outwards. Having thus done, they proceeded to stretch tight the ropes, straining them with wooden windlasses, not now appointing the two kinds of rope to be used apart from one another, but assigning to each bridge two ropes of white flax and four of the papyrus ropes. The thickness and beauty of make was the same for both, but the flaxen ropes were heavier in proportion, and of this rope a cubit weighed one talent. When the passage was bridged over, they sawed up logs of wood, and making them equal in length to the breadth of the bridge they laid them above the stretched ropes, and having set them thus in order they again fastened them above. When this was done, they carried on brushwood, and having set the brushwood also in place, they carried on to it earth; and when they had stamped down the earth firmly, they built a barrier along on each side, so that the baggage-animals and horses might not be frightened by looking out over the sea."According to John Hale's Lords of the Sea, to celebrate the onset of the Sicilian Expedition (415 - 413 B.C.), the Athenian general, Nicias, paid builders to engineer an extraordinary pontoon bridge composed of gilded and tapestried ships for a festival that drew Athenians and Ionians across the sea to the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. On the occasion when Nicias was a sponsor, young Athenians paraded across the boats, singing as they walked, to give the armada a spectacular farewell. The late Roman writer Vegetius, in his work De Re Militari, wrote:

"But the most commodious invention is that of the small boats hollowed out of one piece of timber and very light both by their make and the quality of the wood. The army always has a number of these boats upon carriages, together with a sufficient quantity of planks and iron nails. Thus with the help of cables to lash the boats together, a bridge is instantly constructed, which for the time has the solidity of a bridge of stone."

The emperor Caligula is said to have ridden a horse across a pontoon bridge stretching two miles between Baiae and Puteoli while wearing the armour of Alexander the Great to mock a soothsayer who had claimed he had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae". Caligula's construction of the bridge cost a massive sum of money and added to discontent with his rule.

Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, pontoons were used alongside regular boats to span rivers during campaigns, or to link communities which lacked resources to build permanent bridges. The Hun army of Attila built a bridge across the Nišava during the siege of Naissus in 442 to bring heavy siege towers within range of the city. Sassanid forces crossed the Euphrates on a quickly built pontoon bridge during the siege of Kallinikos in 542. The Ostrogothic Kingdom constructed a fortified bridge across the Tiber during the siege of Rome in 545 to block Byzantine general Belisarius' relief flotillas to the city. The Avar Khaganate forced Syriac-Roman engineers to construct two pontoon bridges across the Sava during the siege of Sirmium in 580 to completely surround the city with their troops and siege works.

Emperor Heraclius crossed the Bosporus on horseback on a large pontoon bridge in 638. The army of the Umayyad Caliphate built a pontoon bridge over the Bosporus in 717 during the siege of Constantinople (717–718). The Carolingian army of Charlemagne constructed a portable pontoon bridge of anchored boats bound together and used it to cross the Danube during campaigns against the Avar Khaganate in the 790s. Charlemagne's army built two fortified pontoon bridges across the Elbe in 789 during a campaign against the Slavic Veleti. The German army of Otto the Great employed three pontoon bridges, made from pre-fabricated materials, to rapidly cross the Recknitz river at the Battle on the Raxa in 955 and win decisively against the Slavic Obotrites. Tenth-Century German Ottonian capitularies demanded that royal fiscal estates maintain watertight, river-fordable wagons for purposes of war.

The Danish Army of Cnut the Great completed a pontoon bridge across the Helge River during the Battle of Helgeå in 1026. Crusader forces constructed a pontoon bridge across the Orontes to expedite resupply during the siege of Antioch in December 1097. According to the chronicles, the earliest floating bridge across the Dnieper was built in 1115. It was located near Vyshhorod, Kiev. Bohemian troops under the command of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor crossed the Adige in 1157 on a pontoon bridge built in advance by the people of Verona on orders of the German Emperor.

The French Royal Army of King Philip II of France constructed a pontoon bridge across the Seine to seize Les Andelys from the English at the siege of Château Gaillard in 1203. During the Fifth Crusade, the Crusaders built two pontoon bridges across the Nile at the siege of Damietta (1218–1219), including one supported by 38 boats. On 27 May 1234, Crusader troops crossed the river Ochtum in Germany on a pontoon bridge during the fight against the Stedingers. Imperial Mongol troops constructed a pontoon bridge at the Battle of Mohi in 1241 to outflank the Hungarian army. The French army of King Louis IX of France crossed the Charente on multiple pontoon bridges during the Battle of Taillebourg on 21 July 1242. Louis IX had a pontoon bridge built across the Nile to provide unimpeded access to troops and supplies in early March 1250 during the Seventh Crusade.

A Florentine army erected a pontoon bridge across the Arno during the siege of Pisa in 1406. The English army of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury crossed the Oise across a pontoon bridge of portable leather vessels in 1441. Ottoman engineers built a pontoon bridge across the Golden Horn during the siege of Constantinople (1453), using over a thousand barrels. The bridge was strong enough to support carts. The Ottoman Army constructed a pontoon bridge during the siege of Rhodes (1480). Venetian pioneers built a floating bridge across the Adige at the Battle of Calliano (1487).

Early modern period

Before the Battle of Worcester, the final battle of the English Civil War, on 30 August 1651, Oliver Cromwell delayed the start of the battle to give time for two pontoon bridges to be constructed, one over the River Severn and the other over the River Teme, close to their confluence. This allowed Cromwell to move his troops West of the Severn during the action on 3 September 1651 and was crucial to the victory by his New Model Army.

The Spanish Army constructed a pontoon bridge at the Battle of Río Bueno in 1654. However, as the bridge broke apart it all ended in a sound defeat of the Spanish by local Mapuche-Huilliche forces. French general Jean Lannes's troops built a pontoon bridge to cross the Po river prior to the Battle of Montebello (1800). Napoleon's Grande Armée made extensive use of pontoon bridges at the battles of Aspern-Essling and Wagram under the supervision of General Henri Gatien Bertrand. General Jean Baptiste Eblé's engineers erected four pontoon bridges in a single night across the Dnieper during the Battle of Smolensk (1812). Working in cold water, Eblé's Dutch engineers constructed a 100-meter-long pontoon bridge during the Battle of Berezina to allow the Grande Armée to escape to safety. During the Peninsular War the British army transported "tin pontoons" that were lightweight and could be quickly turned into a floating bridge.

Lt Col Charles Pasley of the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham England developed a new form of pontoon which was adopted in 1817 by the British Army. Each pontoon was split into two halves, and the two pointed ends could be connected together in locations with tidal flow. Each half was enclosed, reducing the risk of swamping, and the sections bore multiple lashing points.

The "Palsey pontoon" lasted until 1836 when it was replaced by the "Blanshard pontoon" which comprised tin cylinders 3 feet wide and 22 feet long, placed 11 feet apart, making the pontoon very buoyant. The pontoon was tested with the Palsey pontoon on the Medway.

An alternative proposed by Charles Pasley comprised two copper canoes, each 2 foot 8 inches wide and 22 foot long and coming in two sections which were fastened side by side to make a double canoe raft. Copper was used in preference to fast-corroding tin. Lashed at 10 foot centres, these were good for cavalry, infantry and light guns; lashed at 5 foot centres, heavy cannon could cross. The canoes could also be lashed together to form rafts. One cart pulled by two horse carried two half canoes and stores.

A comparison of pontoons used by each nations army shows that almost all were open boats coming in one, two or even three pieces, mainly wood, some with canvas and rubber protection. Belgium used an iron boat; the United States used cylinders split into three.

In 1862 the Union forces commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside were stuck on the wrong side of the Rappahannock River at the Battle of Fredericksburg for lack of the arrival of the pontoon train, resulting in severe losses. The report of this disaster resulted in Britain forming and training a Pontoon Troop of Engineers.

During the American Civil War various forms of pontoon bridges were tried and discarded. Wooden pontoons and India rubber bag pontoons shaped like a torpedo proved impractical until the development of cotton-canvas covered pontoons, which required more maintenance but were lightweight and easier to work with and transport. From 1864 a lightweight design known as Cumberland Pontoons, a folding boat system, were widely used during the Atlanta Campaign to transport soldiers and artillery across rivers in the South.

In 1872 at a military review before Queen Victoria, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the River Thames at Windsor, Berkshire, where the river was 250 ft wide. The bridge, comprising 15 pontoons held by 14 anchors, was completed in 22 minutes and then used to move five battalions of troops across the river. It was removed in 34 minutes the next day.

At Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the Pile-Pontoon Railroad Bridge was constructed in 1874 over the Mississippi River to carry a railroad track connecting that city with Marquette, Iowa. Because the river level could vary by as much as 22 feet, the track was laid on an adjustable platform above the pontoons. This unique structure remained in use until the railroad was abandoned in 1961, when it was removed.

The British Blanshard Pontoon stayed in British use until the late 1870s, when it was replaced by the "Blood Pontoon". The Blood Pontoon returned to the open boat system, which enabled use as boats when not needed as pontoons. Side carrying handles helped transportation. The new pontoon proved strong enough to support loaded elephants and siege guns as well as military traction engines.

Early 20th century
The British Blood Pontoon MkII, which took the original and cut it into two halves, was still in use with the British Army in 1924.

The First World War saw developments on "trestles" to form the link between a river bank and the pontoon bridge. Some infantry bridges in WW1 used any material available, including petrol cans as flotation devices.

The Kapok Assault Bridge for infantry was developed for the British Army, using kapok fibre-filled canvas float and timber foot walks. America created their own version.

Folding Boat Equipment was developed in 1928 and went through several versions until it was used in WW2 to complement the Bailey Pontoon. It had a continuous canvas hinge and could fold flat for storage and transportation. When assembled it could carry 15 men and with two boats and some additional toppings it could transport a 3-ton truck. Further upgrades during WW2 resulted in it moving to a Class 9 bridge.

World War II
Pontoon bridges were used extensively during World War II, mainly in the European Theater of Operations. The United States was the principal user, with Britain next.

United States
In the United States, combat engineers were responsible for bridge deployment and construction. These were formed principally into Engineer Combat Battalions, which had a wide range of duties beyond bridging, and specialized units, including Light Ponton Bridge Companies, Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalions, and Engineer Treadway Bridge Companies; any of these could be organically attached to infantry units or directly at the divisional, corps, or army level.

American engineers built three types of floating bridges: M1938 infantry footbridges, M1938 ponton bridges, and M1940 treadway bridges, with numerous subvariants of each. These were designed to carry troops and vehicles of varying weight, using either an inflatable pneumatic ponton or a solid aluminum-alloy ponton bridge. Both types of bridges were supported by pontons (known today as "pontoons") fitted with a deck built of balk, which were square, hollow aluminum beams.

 * American Light Ponton Bridge Company

An Engineer Light Ponton Company consisted of three platoons: two bridge platoons, each equipped with one unit of M3 pneumatic bridge, and a lightly equipped platoon which had one unit of footbridge and equipment for ferrying. The bridge platoons were equipped with the M3 pneumatic bridge, which was constructed of heavy inflatable pneumatic floats and could handle up to 10 ST; this was suitable for all normal infantry division loads without reinforcement, greater with.

A Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalion was provided with equipage required to provide stream crossing for heavy military vehicles that could not be supported by a light ponton bridge. The Battalion had two lettered companies of two bridge platoons each. Each platoon was equipped with one unit of heavy ponton equipage. The battalion was an organic unit of army and higher echelons. The M1940 could carry up to 25 ST. The M1 Treadway Bridge could support up to 20 ST. The roadway, made of steel, could carry up to 50 ST, while the center section made of 4 in thick plywood could carry up to 30 ST. The wider, heavier tanks used the outside steel treadway while the narrower, lighter jeeps and trucks drove across the bridge with one wheel in the steel treadway and the other on the plywood.
 * American Heavy Ponton Bridge Battalion

An Engineer Treadway Bridge Company consisted of company headquarters and two bridge platoons. It was an organic unit of the armored force, and normally was attached to an Armored Engineer Battalion. Each bridge platoon transported one unit of steel treadway bridge equipage for construction of ferries and bridges in river-crossing operations of the armored division. Stream-crossing equipment included utility powerboats, pneumatic floats, and two units of steel treadway bridge equipment, each of which allowed the engineers to build a floating bridge about 540 ft in length.
 * American Engineer Treadway Bridge Company
 * Materials and equipment

 * Pneumatic ponton

The United States Army Corps of Engineers designed a self-contained bridge transportation and erection system. The Brockway model B666 6 ST 6x6 truck chassis (also built under license by Corbitt and White) was used to transport both the bridge's steel and rubber components. A single Brockway truck could carry material for 30 ft of bridge, including two pontons, two steel saddles that were attached to the pontons, and four treadway sections. Each treadway was 15 ft long with high guardrails on either side of the 2 ft wide track.

The truck was mounted with a 4 ST hydraulic crane that was used to unload the 45 in wide steel treadways. A custom designed twin boom arm was attached to rear of the truck bed and helped unroll and place the heavy inflatable rubber pontoons upon which the bridge was laid. The 220 in wheelbase chassis included a 25000 lb front winch and extra-large air-brake tanks that also served to inflate the rubber pontoons before they were placed in the water.

A pneumatic float was made of rubberized fabric separated by bulkheads into 12 airtight compartments and inflated with air. The pneumatic float consisted of an outer perimeter tube, a floor, and a removable center tube. The 18 ST capacity float was 8 ft wide, 33 ft long,  2 ft deep.

 * Solid ponton

Solid aluminum-alloy pontons were used in place of pneumatic floats to support heavier bridges and loads. They were also pressed into service for lighter loads as needed.

 * Treadway

A treadway bridge was a multi-section, prefabricated floating steel bridge supported by pontoons carrying two metal tracks (or "tread ways") forming a roadway. Depending on its weight class, the treadway bridge was supported either by heavy inflatable pneumatic pontons or by aluminum-alloy half-pontons. The aluminum half-pontons were 29 ft long overall, 6 ft wide at the gunwales, and 3 ft  deep except at the bow where the gunwale was raised. The gunwales were 6 ft center-to-center. At 6 in freeboard, the half-ponton has a displacement of 26500 lb. The sides and bow of the half-ponton were gradually sloped, permitting two or more to be nested for transporting or storing.

A treadway bridge could be built of floating spans or fixed spans. An M2 treadway bridge was designed to carry artillery, heavy duty trucks, and medium tanks up to 40 ST. This could be of any length, and was what was used over major river obstacles such as the Rhine and Moselle. Doctrine stated that it would take $5 1/2$ hours to place a 362-foot section of M2 treadway during daylight and $7 1/2$ hours at night. Pergrin says that in practise 50 ft/hour of treadway construction was expected, which is a little slower than the speed specified by doctrine.

By 1943, combat engineers faced the need for bridges to bear weights of 35 tons or more. To increase weight bearing capacity, they used bigger floats to add buoyancy. This overcame the capacity limitation, but the larger floats were both more difficult to transport to the crossing site and requiring more and larger trucks in the divisional and corps trains.

Britain

Donald Bailey invented the Bailey bridge, which was made up of modular, pre-fabricated steel trusses capable of carrying up to 40 ST over spans up to 180 ft. While typically constructed point-to-point over piers, they could be supported by pontoons as well.

The Bailey bridge was used for the first time in 1942. The first version put into service was a Bailey Pontoon and Raft with a 30 ft single-single Bailey bay supported on two pontoons. A key feature of the Bailey Pontoon was the use of a single span from the bank to the bridge level which eliminated the need for bridge trestles.

For lighter vehicle bridges the Folding Boat Equipment could be used and the Kapok Assault Bridge was available for infantry.

An open sea type of pontoon, another British war time invention, known by their code names, the Mulberry harbours floated across the English Channel to provide harbours for the June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. The dock piers were code named "Whale". These piers were the floating roadways that connected the "Spud" pier heads to the land. These pier heads or landing wharves, at which ships were unloaded each consisted of a pontoon with four legs that rested on the sea bed to anchor the pontoon, yet allowed it to float up and down freely with the tide. "Beetles" were pontoons that supported the "Whale" piers. They were moored in position using wires attached to "Kite" anchors which were also designed by Allan Beckett. These anchors had a high holding power as was demonstrated in D+13 Normandy storm where the British Mulberry survived most of the storm damage whereas the American Mulberry, which only had 20% of its Kite Anchors deployed, was destroyed.

Modern military uses
Pontoon bridges were extensively used by both armies and civilians throughout the latter half of the 20th century. From the Post-War period into the early 1980s the U.S. Army and its NATO and other allies employed three main types of pontoon bridge/raft. The M4 bridge featured a lightweight aluminum balk deck supported by rigid aluminum hull pontoons. The M4T6 bridge used the same aluminum balk deck of the M4, but supported instead by inflatable rubber pontoons. The Class 60 bridge consisted of a more robust steel girder and grid deck supported by inflatable rubber pontoons. All three pontoon bridge types were cumbersome to transport and deploy, and slow to assemble, encouraging the development of an easier to transport, deploy and assemble floating bridge.

Amphibious float bridges

Several alternatives featured a self-propelled amphibious integrated transporter, floating pontoon, bridge deck section that could be delivered and assembled in the water under its own power, linking as many units as required to bridge a gap or form a raft ferry.

An early example was the Engin de Franchissement de l’Avant EFA (mobile bridge) amphibious forward crossing apparatus conceived by French General Jean Gillois in 1955. The system consisted of a wheeled amphibious truck equipped with inflatable outboard flotation sponsons and a rotating vehicle bridge deck section. The system was developed by the West German firm Eisenwerke-Kaiserslauter (EWK) and entered production by the French-German consortium Pontesa. The EFA system was first deployed by the French Army in 1965, and subsequently by the West German Bundeswehr, British Army, and on a very limited basis by the U.S. Army, where it was referred to as Amphibious River Crossing Equipment (ARCE). Production ended in 1973. The EFA was used in combat by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which employed former U.S. Army equipment to cross the Suez Canal in their counterattack into Egypt during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

EWK further developed the EFA system into the M2 "Alligator" Amphibious Bridging Vehicle equipped with fold-out aluminum flotation pontoons, which was produced from 1967 to 1970 and sold to the West German, British and Singapore militaries. The M2 was followed by the revised M3 version, entering service in 1996 with Germany, Britain, Taiwan and Singapore. The M3 was used in combat by British Forces during the Iraq War. More recently, Turkey has developed a similar system in the FNSS Samur wheeled amphibious assault bridge, while the Russian PMM-2 and Chinese GZM003 armoured amphibious assault bridge ride on tracks.

A similar amphibious system, the Mobile Floating Assault Bridge-Ferry (MFAB-F) was developed in the U.S. by Chrysler between 1959 and 1962. As with the French EFA, the MFAB-F consisted of an amphibious truck with a rotating bridge deck section, but there were no outboard flotation sponsons. The MFAB-F was first deployed by the U.S. Army in 1964 and later by Belgium. An improved version was produced by FMC from 1970 to 1976. The MFAB-F remained in service into the early 1980s before being replaced by a simpler continuous pontoon or "ribbon bridge" system.

Ribbon float bridges

In the early Cold War period the Soviet Red Army began development of a new kind of continuous pontoon bridge made up of short folding sections or bays that could be transported and deployed rapidly, automatically unfold in the water, and quickly be assembled into a floating bridge of variable length. Known as the PMP Folding Float Bridge, it was first deployed in 1962 and subsequently adopted by Warsaw Pact countries and other states employing Soviet military equipment. The PMP proved its viability in combat when it was used by Egyptian forces to cross the Suez Canal in 1973. Operation Badr, which opened the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel, involved the erection of at least 10 pontoon bridges to cross the Canal.

Beginning in 1969 the U.S. Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command (MERADCOM) reverse-engineered the Russian PMP design to develop the improved float bridge (IFB), later known as the standard ribbon bridge (SRB). The IFB/SRB was type classified in 1972 and first deployed in service in 1976. It was very similar to the PMP but was constructed of lightweight aluminum instead of heavier steel.

In 1977 the West German Bundeswehr decided to adopt the SRB with some modifications and improvements, entering service in 1979 as the Faltschwimmbrücke, or Foldable Floating Bridge (FSB). Work on designing an improved version of the U.S. SRB incorporating features of the German FSB began in the 1990s, with first deployment by the U.S. Army in the early 2000s as the improved ribbon bridge (IRB).

In addition to the U.S. and Germany, the IFB/SRB/FSB/IRB has been adopted by the Armed Forces of Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Korea and Sweden, among others.

Yugoslav wars
During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, the Maslenica Bridge was destroyed and a short pontoon bridge was built by Croatian civilian and military authorities in July 1993 over a narrow sea outlet in the town of Maslenica, after the territory was retaken from Serbian Krajina. Between 1993 and 1995 the pontoon served as one of the two operational land links toward Dalmatia and Croat- and Bosnian Muslim-held areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina that did not go through Serb-held territory.

In 1995 the 502nd and 38th Engineer Companies of the U.S. Army's 130th Engineer Brigade, and the 586th Engineer Company from Ft. Benning GA, operating as part of IFOR assembled a standard ribbon bridge under adverse weather conditions across the Sava River near Županja (between Croatia and Bosnia), with a total length of 2034 ft. It was dismantled in 1996.

Iran–Iraq war
Numerous pontoon bridges were constructed by the Iranians and Iraqis to cross the various rivers and marshes alongside the Iraqi border. Notable instances include one constructed over the Karkheh river to ambush Iraqi Armor during Operation Nasr, and another where they crossed certain marshes during Operation Dawn 8. They were extremely prominent due to their use in allowing for tanks and transports to cross rivers.

Invasion of Iraq

The United States Army's 299th Multi-role Bridge Company, USAR deployed a standard ribbon bridge across the Euphrates river at Objective Peach near Al Musayib on the night of 3 April 2003. The 185-meter bridge was built to support retrograde operations because of the heavy-armor traffic crossing a partially destroyed adjacent highway span.

"By dawn on 4 April 2003, the 299th Engineer Company had emplaced a 185-meter long Assault Float Bridge—the first time in history that a bridge of its type was built in combat." This took place during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by American and British forces. That same night, the 299th also constructed a 40 m single-story Medium Girder Bridge to patch the damage done to the highway span. The 299th was part of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as they crossed the border into Iraq on 20 March 2003.

Syrian civil war
In February 2018, pro-regime fighters used a pontoon bridge to cross the Euphrates river during the Battle of Khasham.

Eastern Ukraine offensive
In May 2022, Ukrainian forces repelled an attempted Russian military crossing of the Donets river, west of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast, during the Eastern Ukraine offensive. At least one Russian battalion tactical group was reportedly destroyed, as well as the pontoon bridge deployed in the crossing.

Permanent pontoon bridges in civilian use

This design for bridges is also used for permanent bridges designed for highway traffic, pedestrian traffic and bicycles, with sections for boats to ply the waterway being crossed. Seattle in the United States and Kelowna in British Columbia, Canada are two places with permanent pontoon bridges, William R. Bennett Bridge in British Columbia and three in Seattle: Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, and Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge; the latter of which will become the first operational floating railway bridge upon the opening of the final phase of the 2 Line in 2025. There are five pontoon bridges across the Suez Canal. Nordhordland Bridge is a combined cable-stayed and pontoon highway bridge in Norway.

Failures and disasters
The Saint Isaac's Bridge across the Neva River in Saint Petersburg suffered two disasters, one natural, a gale in 1733, and then a fire in 1916.

Floating bridges can be vulnerable to inclement weather, especially strong winds. The U.S. state of Washington is home to some of the longest permanent floating bridges in the world, and two of these failed in part due to strong winds.

In 1979, the longest floating bridge crossing salt water, the Hood Canal Bridge, was subjected to winds of 80 mph, gusting up to 120 mph. Waves of 10 - 15 ft battered the sides of the bridge, and within a few hours the western 3/4 mi of the structure had sunk. It has since been rebuilt.

In 1990, the 1940 Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge was closed for renovations. Specifically, the sidewalks were being removed to widen the traffic lanes to the standards mandated by the Interstate Highway System. Engineers realized that jackhammers could not be employed to remove the sidewalks without risking compromising the structural integrity of the entire bridge. As such, a unique process called hydrodemolition was employed, in which powerful jets of water are used to blast away concrete, bit by bit. The water used in this process was temporarily stored in the hollow chambers in the pontoons of the bridge in order to prevent it from contaminating the lake. During a week of rain and strong winds, the watertight doors were not closed and the pontoons filled with water from the storm, in addition to the water from the hydrodemolition. The inundated bridge broke apart and sank. The bridge was rebuilt in 1993.

A minor disaster occurs if anchors or connections between the pontoon bridge segments fail. This may happen because of overloading, extreme weather or flood. The bridge disintegrates and parts of it start to float away. Many cases are known. When the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge sank, it severed the anchor cables of the bridge parallel to it. A powerful tugboat pulled on that bridge against the wind during a subsequent storm, and prevented further damage.

title: Pontoon bridge