George W. Bartholomew might have laid the groundwork for concrete streets and roads in the U.S. in 1891. Firm placement of rigid pavements on the map, however, would come 25 years later - and only after an act of Congress and the simultaneous formation of one of the country's oldest and largest trade associations.
Many business interests inside and outside the construction industry had a stake in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916, but few were in the position to promulgate and fuel a road-building rage in a manner similar to Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers members. The group had originally formed in 1902 with a primary goal of addressing a problem with cement sack handling and processing. Acknowledging the limitations of its mission and charter - and realizing that annual domestic cement shipments had soared from below 2 million tons at the turn of the century to 17 million tons in 1916 - the AAPCM regrouped and expanded to from the Chicago-based Portland Cement Association, now in its 75th year and headquartered in Skokie, a bordering town on the Windy City's north side.
By the end of World War I, the proliferation of concrete construction had spurred a need for reliable technical information, research, and education. Both cement-making and concrete construction lacked uniform test methods and standards. Founding PCA-member companies launched their new group on this premise: "To raise the standard of concrete construction, to improve the quality of concrete work, to increase the quantity of cement used in established field, and to develop new fields."
Toward that end, national advertising campaign kicked off in 1918 to tout the merits of concrete in farm-to-market roads, city streets, and highways. The campaign augmented regional promotion and technical support at the Chicago headquarters and eight district offices. Concrete-road-way advertising campaigns would continue as PCA signature program through the first few years of building the Interstate system.
During the 1920's and 1930's, PCA helped link the better roads movement and concrete pavement fever by casting a series of "seedling" miles - mile-long, 9-foot-wide pavements set on unpaved rural roads. The rationale was rooted in a modern marketing ploy: creating for spotlighting a perceived need. In the case of seedling miles, road users could appreciate firsthand the differences between traveling on a paved road and dirt or macadam.
On the technical side, PCA assisted in early concrete-pavement testing and research programs with federal and state agencies and engineering departments of major universities. It also worked closely on cement- and concrete-standards development with the American Society for Testing and Materials and pavement construction and engineering guidelines of the American Concrete Institute.
PCA's biggest contribution on the technical side came in 1939, when it assisted a host of member companies in identifying the performance benefits of air-entrained concrete. Air entrainment remains this century's greatest quantum leap in concrete technology - both for transportation and non-transportation construction.
Technical contributions to the cement and concrete industries were evident in the lab and the field. In the latter, PCA had become widely acknowledged in transportation circles through its network of district and regional offices and field engineers.
The support mechanisms have since changed, yet the commitment to serving transportation officials continues. It's a commitment driven by securing a broader market for concrete pavement, while delivering the best available product measured on the basis of life-cycle cost, durability, and user economy.
It's a commitment based on a motto that PCA has carried through much of its 75-year history: "An organization to improve and extend the uses of portland cement and concrete."
