1862 | Illustration
The U.S. Military Railroads rebuilt the South?s railroads in the closing months of the war. African American railroad workers cut timber, broke rock, and hauled gravel for the grading. Their experience on the railroads as trackmen and laborers, as well as firemen and brakemen, continued after the war. In 1880 over 50 percent of all railroad workers in Virginia were black; in Pennsylvania, by contrast, railroad workers were almost uniformly white.
August 18, 1877 | Illustration
An illustration of "The Moral of the Strikes" which emphasizes their cost to working-class women and children.
August 1, 1877 | Illustration
This cover illustration from the August 1, 1877 issue of PUCK Magazine depicts a poor family's decision to go on strike.
1859 | Illustration
A visual representation of the relationship between photographers and painters.
1864 | Illustration
A time atlas, illustrating the time and mileage distances between Washington and numerous other world locations. Conceptualizng space and time in a way that was meaningful to an increasingly mobile population became an increasingly important task during the 19th Century.
August 4, 1877 | Illustration
As the Great Strike of 1877 developed, strikers on the Erie Railroad in New York stopped trains along their stretch of the route.
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.
August 4, 1877 | Illustration
This image comes from a series of illustrations "Scenes In The Armory Of The Seventh Regiment, N.G.S.N.Y." depicting the soldiers' stay in their armory in preparation for violence on the streets of New York.
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.
August 28, 1869 | Illustration
This image from the August 28, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts a Nebraska prairie fire near the Union Pacific railroad. Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Magazine featured stories about highlights along the transcontinental route
August 1, 1877 | Illustration
This image from the August 1, 1877 edition of PUCK Magazine is a pun on Kars (a city in Turkey) that depicts a soldier being pulled behind a railroad car.
August 4, 1877 | Illustration
When members of the Maryland National Guard moved through Baltimore on their way to Camden Station, street violence erupted as strikers and supporters protested the use of armed troops to keep order in Cumberland, Maryland.
March 19, 1870 | Illustration
This image from the March 19, 1870 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts workers and a snow plow attempting to clear a snow drift on the Pacific Railroad.
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.
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.
1862 | Illustration
When guerrillas attacked Union forces, the northern public was outraged. Confederate guerrillas and partisan rangers attacked the railroad and telegraph systems, opening up the war to civilians and exposing the remorseless nature of the national conflict. Their activities played a central role in the war.
1864 | Illustration
The partisan war in Loudon County, Virginia, turned especially violent in the fall of 1864. Confederate forces under John S. Mosby captured and killed Union soldiers in retaliation for the burning of civilian homes, and Union general George A. Custer responded by hanging seven of Mosby?s men. Then, on November 6, 1864, Mosby executed several more Union soldiers in response. The fighting took place along the Manassas Gap Railroad line and its bridges.
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 4, 1877 | Illustration
Note the imagery that is slightly reminscient of Archibald Willard's famous painting The Spirit of '76.
August 4, 1877 | Illustration
The worst agitation in Ohio occured at Newark, an important Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot.