engineering

Roshek's

Roshek's is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roshek's rather than just read about it. In short: Roshek Brothers Department Store was a large retail store in downtown Dubuque, Iowa, United States. The company was founded by J.J.and F.H.

Key takeaways

Roshek's belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roshek's to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roshek's from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roshek Brothers Department Store was a large retail store in downtown Dubuque, Iowa, United States. The company was founded by J.J.and F.H. Roshek. In its prime, Roshek's was the primary shopping destination in Dubuque and was the largest department store in the state of Iowa. The building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

Roshek's operated for more than 40 years in a 9-story building at 700 Locust Street in Dubuque. The building was built in two halves beginning in August 1929. Originally the whole building was to be finished within a year, but as of the fall of 1931, only the north half was finished. Wholly completed in 1932, the building is a block long and half a block wide and is the tallest building in Dubuque. It replaced two four-story buildings, the former Rider-Wallis dry goods building, located on the south half of the same block (demolished to complete this building), and a smaller four-story Roshek building across the alley immediately east, which was located on the southwest corner of Eighth and Main streets, which was later occupied by Montgomery Ward. The building's architect was Charles Wheeler Nicol (1888–1953), a noted regional designer of major hotels and school buildings. This was and remains the state's largest building to be used as a department store. Other department stores were also located downtown. In the 1960s, prior to the construction of Kennedy Mall, Stampfer's was on the northeast corner of Eighth and Main streets. J.C. Penney was on the west side of Main Street, just north of Stampfer's. In the 1960s Roshek's decided to move their operations to smaller quarters at Kennedy Mall, a regional shopping center on the western edge of the city. Roshek's became one of the mall's anchor tenants, along with Montgomery Ward and Younkers, a Des Moines department store which made its first appearance in Dubuque when the mall was built. The new Roshek's store opened in 1970. The Roshek family subsequently sold the store to Gamble-Skogmo, Inc. The store closed in 1982. Today what was originally Roshek's space in the mall was occupied by two other department stores, Sears and Younkers. After Roshek's moved from downtown, the former department store was converted into an office building. For most of the time since conversion, it has been known as the Dubuque Building, except for a period of several years when it was called CyCare Plaza. It is now called The Roshek Building. On January 15, 2009, IBM announced that it would move into the building, creating a new technology service center with 1,300 employees after improving the building to make it a LEED-certified building. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 17, 2010.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roshek's

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roshek's claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roshek's before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roshek's ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roshek's

In research: Roshek's appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roshek's in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roshek's is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Art Deco architecture in Iowa, Beaux-Arts architecture in Iowa, Buildings and structures completed in 1932, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roshek's outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Roshek's” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Roshek's in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roshek's means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roshek's out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roshek's in simple terms?

Roshek Brothers Department Store was a large retail store in downtown Dubuque, Iowa, United States. The company was founded by J.J.and F.H.

Why does Roshek's matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roshek's?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roshek's.