Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.
Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
Introduction
526.01 Transportation > The expansion and significance of railways in the nineteenth century
The history of railways or railroads can be linked to significant events such as the Golden Spike Ceremony, Promontory Point, Utah (10 May 1869) in the USA, the opening of the railway station at Yokohama in Japan (1872) soon after it had opened up to Western influences in the 1850s, Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona) driving the last spike for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) creating the first continuous route across Canada to British Columbia and the Pacific (7 November 1885), the completion of the Trans-Siberian (1916) across Russia. The boom in railways throughout the world encouraged commerce, enhanced mobility and led to the standardization of time zones.
The development of photography was in large part contemporary with the growth of the railways and there are numerous connections connections between the two.
Photography of civil engineering projects connected with railways - the bridges, tunnels, railway ferries, round houses, stations and the tracklaying.
    
Portraits of the survey leams and transient workers who worked on the construction.
   
Documentary photographs of the trains themselves.
      
Albums and series commissioned by the railroad companies to encourage investment or promote the lines.
   
The use of landscape photographs to encourage travel and increase business on the newly constructed railway lines.
  
Photographic studios on trains or at railway hotels to provide local views, take portraits of travelers, and provide souvenirs.
           
Photographers who documented how railways could be disrupted at times of war as a strategic move.
  
It was also the means of distributing the cameras, equipment and chemicals from the manufacturing companies to the supply houses and through the retailers to the photographers. The role of railways in the dissemination of ideas and the current technologies of photography through publications and the supporting paraphenalia and chemicals has not as yet been well studied.
France
526.02 Transportation > Édouard Baldus: Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (1860s)
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526.03 Transportation > Édouard Baldus: Les chemins de fer du Nord. Ligne de Paris à Boulogne. Vues photographiques
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526.04 Transportation > Construction du Chemin de Fer Metropolitan Municipal de Paris (1905-1910)
      
Portugal
526.05 Transportation > Emilio Biel: Caminho de Ferro do Douro (ca. 1890)
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USA
526.06 Transportation > The importance of railroads in the development of the American West
      
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]
526.07 Transportation > Railways and the American Civil War (1861-1865)
          
Sherman's neckties - otherwise known at Sherman's hairpins or Sherman's bow ties - where named after Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army and were a method employed for destroying Confederate railroad infrastructure as a part of his scorched earth policy during the American Civil War.
Gerneral Sherman, Special Field Orders No.37, (July 18, 1864)
"...Keep every man of his command at work in destroying the railroad by tearing up track, burning the ties and iron, and twisting the bars when hot. Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again. Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral.”
Other devices for wrecking track employed large levers and A.J. Russell photographed the use of these in his series Photographs illustrative of operations in construction and transportation, as used to facilitate the movements of the Armies of the Rappahannock, of Virginia, and of the Potomac ... (1863)
526.08 Transportation > Trains: Central Pacific Railroad
        
526.09 Transportation > Alexander Gardner and others: Across the continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad
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526.10 Transportation > William Henry Jackson: Railways
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526.11 Transportation > A.J. Russell: Golden Spike Ceremony, Promontory Point, Utah (10 May 1869)
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
    
The joining of the rails at Promontory Point in Utah on the 10 May 1869 had an immense significance in American history. It was far more than the physical joining of pieces of track as the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad lines met. The transcontinental railroad brought about the unification of the country with the first means of rapid transit from coast to coast which was a commercial boon. It also symbolized the healing of a single America after the ravages of the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Andrew J. Russell, who had been an army captain and photographed military railroad construction and destruction during the American Civil War, was the official photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad. When the lines met at Promontory Point he was there to record the historic moment as the two trains, Union Pacific's "Engine 119" and Central Pacific's "Jupiter", drew close and the golden spike was driven home by Governor Leland Stanford.
526.12 Transportation > Wyoming: Dale Creek Crossing (1868-1901)
   
526.13 Transportation > Alfred Hart: First Construction Train passing the Palisades, Ten Mile Cañon
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South America
526.14 Transportation > Georges Poulet: Aurora Argentina (1890s)
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Georges Poulet was a French engineer and the manager of Argentina’s Santa Fe Railroad Company. He photographed railway construction in Argentina in the early 1890s. His series Aurora Argentina, from Santa Fe to Tucuman consists of cyanotypes.
Trains
526.15 Transportation > Trains, railroads and railways
                                         
Photochroms
526.16 Transportation > Photochroms: Railways
Railroad studios
526.17 Transportation > Railroad photograph cars and studios on trains
526.18 Transportation > Backmarks for railroad photograph cars
Backmarks
526.19 Transportation > Carte de visites: Backs: Transportation
 
alan@luminous-lint.com |
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
John Cooke Bourne
Hannavy, John, 2004, Winter, ‘John Cooke Bourne, Charles Blacker Vignoles and the Dnieper Suspension Bridge‘, History of Photography, vol.28, pp.334-347 [Δ]
Father Browne
O'Donnell, E.E., 2005, Father Browne's Trains and Railways, (Currach Press) isbn-10: 1856079163 isbn-13: 978-1856079167 [Δ]
Alexander Gardner
Gardner, Alexander, 1869 (ca), Across the Continent on the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Route of the 35th Parallel) [Δ]
William Henry Jackson
Hales, Peter B., 1988, William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press) [Δ]
Jackson, William Henry, 1986, Time Exposure: The Autobiography of William Henry Jackson, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press) [Introduction by Ferenc M. Szasz] [Δ]
O. Winston Link
Link, O.W., 1987, Steam, Steel & Stars: America’s Last Steam Railroad, (New York: Harry N. Abrams) [With T. Hensley] [Δ]
Link, O.W., 1995, The Last Steam Railroad in America: From Tidewater to Whitetop, (New York: Harry N. Abrams) [With T. Garver] [Δ]
Georges Poulet
Poulet, Georges, 2005, Georges Poulet: Aurora Argentina Cyanotypes 1890-1894, (Walther Konig) isbn-13: 978-3883759326 [Δ]
William H. Rau
Rau, William H., 1916, June, ‘How I Photograph Railroad-Scenery‘, Photo-Era, vol.36, no.6, pp.261-265 [Δ]
Van Horne, John C. (ed.), 2002, Traveling the Pennsylvania Railroad: The Photographs of William H. Rau, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) isbn-10: 0812236254 isbn-13: 978-0812236255 [Δ]
A.J. Russell
Hayden, Ferdinand, 1870, Sun pictures of Rocky Mountain scenery, with a description of the geographical and geological features, and some account of the resources of the great West; containing thirty photographic views along the line of the Pacific rail road, from Omaha to Sacramento, (New York: J. Bien) [Includes 30 mounted albumen prints by A.J. Russell] [Δ]
Russell, Andrew Joseph, 1869, The Great West Illustrated in a Series of Photographic Views Across the Continent; Taken Along the Line of the Union Pacific Railroad, West From Omaha, Nebraska, (New York, Union Pacific Railroad Company) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
William Atkinson • Édouard Baldus (1813-1889) • Emilio Biel (1838-1915) • John Cooke Bourne (1814-1896) • Father Browne (1880-1960) • John Carbutt • Evelyn George Carey • Olive Edis (1876-1955) • Marc Ferrez (1843-1923) • Alexander Gardner (1821-1882) • Alfred Hart (1816-1908) • F. Jay Haynes (1853-1921) • William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) • J. Payne Jennings (check) • O. Winston Link (1914-2001) • Frank Bird Masters (1873-1955) • William McFarlane Notman (1858-1913) • Charles Page (1946-) • Georges Poulet (1848-1936) • William H. Rau (1855-1920) • A.J. Russell (1830-1902) • Sherer, Nabgolts & Co. • Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916) | Home > Themes > Transportation > Land transportation > Railways
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