Artists, photographers, and illustrators drafted images of the railroad, seeking to represent the technology to a wide audience. Newspapers and magazines tried to characterize the technology. The railroads too participated in this effort, sending out artists' excursions, paying advertisers for slick brochures, and commissioning artwork. As a result competing images of the railroad circulated throughout the nineteenth century in different places and different times.
N.D. | Time Table
The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad stressed its safety record and comfortable, elegant, luxurious cars. The time table quotes former Illinois Congressman Elihu B. Washburn on the road's smooth ride and "clean, light, and airy" setting. The road also boasted that its passengers traveling in its beautifully appointed Pullman cars would "not have to leave the train between Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis."
May 28, 1858 | Illustration
This image from the May 28, 1858 edition of Harper's Weekly depicts an accident on a railroad bridge near Utica, New York.
June 26, 1858 | Illustration
This image from the June 26, 1858 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a train passing through the Wabash Valley during a flood.
June 26, 1858 | Illustration
This image from the June 26, 1858 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the flooding of Cairo, Illinois.
July 31, 1858 | Illustration
This image from the July 31, 1858 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the beginning of a train derailment on the Erie railroad.
July 31, 1858 | Illustration
This image from the July 31, 1858 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the scene at a train derailment on the Erie railroad.
July 16, 1859 | Illustration
This image from the July 16, 1859 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a scene on the morning after a terrible train accident on the Michigan Southern railroad.
September 10, 1859 | Illustration
This montage of images from the September 10, 1859 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the city of Chicago, Illinois.
September 10, 1859 | Illustration
This image from the September 10, 1859 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a man dressed for a morning on the town.
October 9, 1859 | Illustration
This image from the October 9, 1859 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a farewell exchange between a man and woman.
August 11, 1860 | Illustration
This image from the August 11, 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a cartoonist's rendering of the misleading term "AfterDonkey Engine."
August 25, 1860 | Illustration
This image from the August 25, 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the Victoria Tubular Bridge at Montreal, Canada.
November 1, 1862 | Illustration
This image from the November 1, 1862 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a cartoonist's conception of the impact of the railroad on Broadway.
July 23, 1864 | Illustration
This image from the July 23, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a major railway disaster near Montreal, Canada. The conductor failed to heed a signal that the Belacil Bridge was open for barge traffic and the ensuing accident killed ninety people and wounded one hundred more.
June 30, 1866 | Illustration
This image from the June 30, 1866 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a stinging cartoonist's criticism of the nature of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company.
November 2, 1867 | Illustration
This image from the November 2, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a cartoonist's conception of the relationship between railroads and rheumatism.
December 7, 1867 | Illustration
This image from the December 7, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a tragic November 21, 1864 railroad disaster near Lockland, Ohio in which two trains collided. At least four people were killed.
December 14, 1867 | Illustration
This image from the December 14, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts men shooting buffalo for sport from Kansas Pacific Railroad cars.
March 14, 1868 | Illustration
This image from the March 14, 1868 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a cartoonist's conception of the railroad to the Pacific as the movement of a line of trunks.
November 28, 1868 | Illustration
This image from the November 28, 1868 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts four scences of damage in San Francisco, California following a severe earthquake: the Coffey and Risdons Building, the Railroad house and Rosenbum's Tobacco Warehouse, the Gas Works, and California Street.
May 22, 1869 | Illustration
This image from the May 22, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a railroad disaster following a bridge collapse at Buckfield, Maine.
September 25, 1869 | Illustration
This image from the September 25, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the new railroad depot on Hudson Street in New York City, New York.
September 25, 1869 | Illustration
This image from the September 25, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the Vanderbilt bronze monument at the Hudson River railroad depot in New York City, New York.
February 25, 1871 | Illustration
This image from the February 25, 1871 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the recovery of bodies following a serious railroad accident at New Hamburg, New York.
February 25, 1871 | Illustration
This image from the February 25, 1871 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a burning railroad car following an accident at New Hamburg, New York.
February 10, 1872 | Illustration
This image from the February 10, 1872 issue of Harper's Weekly offers an artist's conception of the response of a train crew to a warning of impending disaster.
March 23, 1872 | Illustration
This image from the March 23, 1872 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a train derailment on the Boston Express near Springfield, Massachusetts.
March 30, 1872 | Illustration
This image from the March 30, 1872 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a cartoonist's view of justice "derailing" a corrupt ring on the Erie Railroad.
March 30, 1872 | Illustration
This image from the March 30, 1872 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a railroad depot at Moss Neck, North Carolina.
April 27, 1872 | Illustration
This image from the April 27, 1872 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a proposed harbor at Dover, Delaware, that includes a railroad depot for shipping cargo.
March 14, 1874 | Illustration
In an apparent commentary on the slowness of some railroad companies, this image from the March 14, 1874 issue of Harper's Weekly offers a cartoonist's conception of a patient railroad traveler.
1880 | Time Table
The Baltimore and Ohio was one of the oldest railroads in the nation and the first to break through the Allegheny Mountains to reach the Ohio River in 1857. In its 1880 time table the railroad stressed the natural features and wonders along its route and its picturesque sites. The road also used a massive map of the nation to expose its western connections.
September 1, 1881 | Time Table
The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway's 1881 time table featured linkages to "leading business centers" and "summer resorts of the Great North-West."
August 1, 1884 | Time Table
The Chicago and Northwestern Railway's 1884 time table listed detailed times and maps for its extensive regional system.
1885 | Time Table
The Chesapeake and Ohio's 1885 time table featured excursion rates to "Old Point Comfort" on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Pitched to male travelers, the brochure described "nymph-like bathers" at the resort hotel and "the merry laugh of some bewitching beauty." Travelers could also take steamship to Barbados, Rio de Janiero, or Para, Brazil, at "the mouth of the Amazon." The brochure also emphasized the picturesque scences of the Alleghenies and Virginia, where Civil War battlefields could be toured. "The battle of the Seven Pines was fought near where the railway runs," the brochure explained, "and McClellan's peninsular campaign has made this entire section of Virginia interesting."
March 1, 1885 | Time Table
The Boston & Albany's 1885 time table emphasized its connection with the New York Central and its modern safety, as the "only double track route from New England to the West."
1885 | Time Table
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe's 1885 time table emphasized its connections not only to California but also to Mexico City on the Mexico Central Railroad. Its large map featured detailed insets of Baja California and Mexico for tourists and travelers, and its inside folds described special rates for "land explorers" and emigrants.
1886 | Time Table
The Chicago and Atlantic Railway's 1886 time table emphasized its "straight line" to the East and the "smoothness and evenness" of its grade. The road used "the best of steel rails only" and boasted "three thousand oak ties to the mile."
1886 | Time Table
The Chicago and Alton time table stressed the regional, midwestern connections for St. Louis and Kansas City.
1887 | Time Table
The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad's 1887 time table featured the speed of its route from St. Louis, Kansas City, or Chicago to Los Angeles. The time table emphasized express trains and fewer changes of cars than competing lines.
December 10, 1888 | Time Table
The 1888 Chicago and North-Western Railway emphasized "cheap farms and free homes" in Northern Nebraska along the Elkhorn Valley, the Niobrara Valley, and into the Black Hills in South Dakota. The time table included detailed descriptions of homestead policies and land availability for immigrants and settlers.
February 7, 1891 | Time Table
August 20, 1891 | Time Table
The Chicago, Burlington & Northern's 1891 time table adopted a compass-like circular image representing the major points accessible on the line. This table also featured the history of the line and the picturesque sites along its route.
1892 | Time Table
This 1892 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe time table featured detailed insets with maps of its subsidiary lines.
1893 | Time Table
The Chicago Great Western Railway's 1893 time table placed its line in the center of a globe-like image. The road stressed its comfortable "compartmented sleeping cars."
March 1, 1907 | Time Table
By 1907 railroads were producing elaborate time tables with detailed connecting information, rates, and times. The Santa Fe Railroad emphasized detailed times and schedules for this large system.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) captures a railroad freight crew posing with an Erie Railroad car in the background.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) captures a white, female passenger receiving a manicure from an African-American woman while aboard the railroad.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), shows a railroad engineer, "oil-can in hand," lubricating the wheel of a locomotive.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), captures a railroad fireman shoveling coal into the firebox.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), depicts a room full of freight department clerks.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad, published in 1911, shows one of the earliest locomotives built for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad(1911) captures two cranes removing a badly damaged Mogul locomotive from the site where it derailed.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad(1911), shows the first engine of the James J. Hill system sitting next to one of the Great Northern Railroad's more recent models.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) captures the interior of an elegant dining car, including several of its male and female passengers.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) depicts a large number of railroad mechanics posing with a locomotive.
1911 | Photograph
This image from Edward Hungerford's The Modern Railroad (1911) features the "John Bull," a historic locomotive of the Cambden and Amboy railroad.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), showcases "the biggest locomotive in the world," a huge engine built by the Santa Fe Railroad in its Topeka, Kansas shops.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), shows a railroad conductor at work.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), captures a track walker, lantern in hand, performing his nightly duties.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) shows a number of railroad workers standing atop a wrecking train.
September 15, 1912 | Time Table
The Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway in 1912 stressed the opportunities in the Northwestern United States. This "new land" would allow the farmer to "pay for his land in two crops" and the "investor" to "make large and quick profits."
1925 | Map
These two maps from the 1925 Statistical Atlas of the United States offer regional and national geographical representations of the changing centers of population in the United States from 1790 to 1920.
March 4, 1928 | Time Table
The Chicago and Northwestern Railway's 1928 time table emphasized planning "your summer vacation" to Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Zion, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Yosemite, and Ranier National Parks, as well as other western mountain sites.
1932 | Map
This map from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States reveals the United States land grants available for the construction of railroads and wagon roads between 1823-1871. As the key indicates, dark lines represent the limits of the land grants, while white and striped areas differentiate between unforfeited and forfeited Federal land grants for railroads.
1932 | Map
This series of maps from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States shows the progressive decrease in travel time by depicting the time required to travel from New York to various western locations in 1800, 1830, 1857, AND 1930.
1932 | Map
These two maps from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States display overland mail routes and railroad lines in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. The maps show the extent of railroads in 1850 and 1860 and overland mail from 1850 to 1869.
1932 | Map
This map from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States depicts the various railroad lines operating in the United States in 1840.
1932 | Map
This map from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States depicts the vast railroad system James J. Hill owned in 1914.
1932 | Map
This map from the 1932 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States displays the United States' railroad lines in 1870 as well as some of the major cities they connected.
Includes a video interview with a developer and graphical analyses of themes within railroad images.
© 2006–2008 All Rights Reserved. William G. Thomas, III | Comments?
