Contextual notes:
By 1840, the United States had 2,818 miles of track but the awarding of land grants by the government from 1855 onwards encouraged speculation and by the start of the American Civil War in 1861 the network had extensive coverage particularly in the Eastern States with 30,000 miles of tracks. Railways were seen as one means of unifying a vast country at a time when it was being pulled apart by the Civil War and in 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act which authorized the building of the first transcontinental railroad. The rails of Central Pacific and Union Pacific meet at Promontory Summit in Utah on 10 May 1869 for the driving of the golden spike only seven years later. Through the 1880's an additional 70,000 miles were laid with the Northern Pacific completed going from Lake Superior to Seattle (Sept 1883), the Southern Pacific from San Francisco to El Paso and later on to New Orleans, the completion of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and the Great Northern of "Empire Builder" James Jerome Hill cutting across the northern plains and the Rocky Mountains.
The railroad barons were granted vast tracts of land, built cities and needed passengers and freight. Advertising and political lobbying were essential components of the strategy and regularly photographs were supplied to politicians to encourage development and protection of the wilderness. Photographers like Carleton Eugene Watkins on the Central Pacific, William Henry Jackson and Andrew Joseph Russell on the Union Pacific Railroad, William H. Rau on the Lehigh Valley Railroad from 1895 onwards and Alfred Hart, documented the construction, routes and landscapes. Their photographs of Yosemite and Yellowstone were used to promote the protection of the wilderness.
The photographs of Alexander Gardner were produced in the portfolio Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Route of the 35th Parallel) which consists of 125 plates from a survey made by the Kansas Pacific Railroad from Saint Louis to San Francisco, California in 1867 and 1868. They went through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and into California. These are the first photographs known for many of these locations.
[Thanks to Anne Peterson, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University for her contributions] |
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