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Sigvald Johannesson

civil engineer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ7513341 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sigvald Johannesson (1877–1953) was a civil engineer best known for his design of the Pulaski Skyway.

Johannesson was a graduate of the University of Copenhagen who later worked on the London Underground. He emigrated to the United States and worked on the North River Tunnels and the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River. He joined the New Jersey Highway Department (now the New Jersey Department of Transportation) during the early development of the Skyway project and is considered to be responsible for its ultimate design. Johannesson worked the agency until his retirement in 1948 as head of the Division of Planning and Economics. In 1931, he published a seminal work entitled Highway Economics. He died in 1953.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Sigvald Johannesson” as civil engineer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sigvald, Johannesson and civil.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1877, 1953, 1948, 1931—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1877-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Sigvald, Johannesson and civil providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Sigvald Johannesson”, the useful work is to connect “civil engineer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7513341. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 1953, 1948 and 1931.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sigvald Johannesson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sigvald Johannesson primary sources, Sigvald Johannesson archive and Sigvald research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sigvald Johannesson”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sigvald Johannesson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.