Views are interpretive historical representations which move toward the recovery of a style of visual argument for history. Each View contains information pulled from documents, databases, and historical sources and each seeks to demonstrate the social effects of the development of the railroad network over time. We will assemble here animated charts, graphs, movies, and historical GIS files for comparison and analysis.
Henry Adams, in The Education of Henry Adams, remarked, "The generation between 1865 and 1895 was already mortgaged to the railways, and no one knew it better than the generation itself." The railroads were a centripetal and centrifugal force, a kind of powerful vortex, in American society. Their reach into the lives of everyday Americans, was Henry Adams' chief concern. He could see that railroads were "but one active interest, to which all others were subservient, and which absorbed the energies of some sixty million people to the exclusion of every other force, real or imaginary." Railroad corporations employed thousands and their services spanned the continent, reshaping the economies and social relations in whole regions. For everyday Americans the railroad cut travel time and changed the spatial relationships in their lives.
© 2006–2008 All Rights Reserved. William G. Thomas, III | Comments?
