Railroad History Research Articles

Transforming Chiangmai-Lamphun-Lampang railroad history and commercial quartier study into SRT creative railroad travel service products

Transforming Chiangmai-Lamphun-Lampang railroad history and commercial quartier study into SRT creative railroad travel service products

Rails East to Ogden: Utah's Transcontinental Railroad Story

Rails East to Ogden: Utah's Transcontinental Railroad Story

Review: Rails East to Ogden: Utah’s Transcontinental Railroad Story, by Michael R. Polk and Christopher W. Merritt

Book Review| August 01 2022 Review: Rails East to Ogden: Utah’s Transcontinental Railroad Story, by Michael R. Polk and Christopher W. Merritt Michael R. Polk and Christopher W. Merritt. Rails East to Ogden: Utah’s Transcontinental Railroad Story. Salt Lake City, UT: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 2021. 322 pp. Free online at https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/rails_east_to_ogden. Daniel Milowski Daniel Milowski DANIEL MILOWSKI is a historian of Route 66 and community development in the twentieth-century American Southwest whose research interests include transportation infrastructure, race and ethnicity, and southwestern American community development. His first book, Mother Road Mythos: The Rise and Fall of Route 66 and the Formation of an American Cultural Icon, will be released in early 2023 by Lexington Books. His current research project—the Route 66 Memory Project, https://route66memoryproject.org—is focused on digitally documenting public memory of Route 66. He has a PhD in history from Arizona State University, a master’s in history from Arizona State University, a master’s in journalism from the University of Oregon, and a BA in history from Minnesota State University–Bemidji. He has presented papers at conferences of the Western History Association, Social Science History Association (SSHA), American History Association Pacific Coast Branch (PCB-AHA), American Society for Environmental History (ASEH), and National Council on Public History (NCPH). He has won numerous grants to support his research, including awards from the Grand Canyon Historical Society, PCB-AHA, ASEH, SSHA, NCPH, and Arizona State University. He teaches U.S. history at Arizona State University and Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California History (2022) 99 (3): 77–79. https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.77 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Daniel Milowski; Review: Rails East to Ogden: Utah’s Transcontinental Railroad Story, by Michael R. Polk and Christopher W. Merritt. California History 1 August 2022; 99 (3): 77–79. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.77 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCalifornia History Search Readers are likely familiar with the famous meeting of competing rail lines at Promontory Summit that first ushered in American transcontinental railroad travel. Part of the Bureau of Land Management’s Cultural Resource Series, Rails East to Ogden explores Utah’s place within this history. The publication is part national railroad history, part regional railroad history, and part field guide documenting each stop along the original transcontinental route in Utah. It is a follow-up to an earlier BLM book on the same topic, Rails East to Promontory: The Utah Stations (first published in 1981, updated in 1994, and still available as a digital download from the BLM website), updating that work with new research data as well as documentation on public outreach celebrating the contributions of numerous ethnic, racial, and religious communities whose history in Utah is fused with the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Ambitious in scope, this 322-page book brings... You do not currently have access to this content.

Plymouth Railroads by Elizabeth Kelly Karstens and Ellen Elliott

Reviewed by: Plymouth Railroads by Elizabeth Kelly Karstens and Ellen Elliott Bill McKnight Elizabeth Kelly Karstens and Ellen Elliott. Plymouth Railroads. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2020. Pp. 128. Bibliography. Illustrations. Paperback: $21.99. Those who live near Plymouth's railroad diamond (track crossing) know the sounds, sights, and grade crossing interruptions of Plymouth's railroad activity. Plymouth's railroad scene has changed over the years, but it is still lively. Passenger trains have been gone since 1971, automotive traffic is significantly decreased because of Ford and GM assembly and parts plant closures, and run-through SOO Line freights no longer use the CSX east-west route across Michigan. Still, CSX Transportation intermodal double-stack trains seem to abound, delaying motorists especially on Starkweather and Main Streets. Transport of grain, chemicals, steel, and coal is seen and heard in the middle of otherwise quiet nights. Plymouth's railroad presence has been, and still is, strong. Plymouth Railroads is a thorough examination of Plymouth's railroad history from the first track in 1871 to today. As with all Arcadia Publishing books, this volume is mostly photographs, with well-chosen images of all eras depicting both railroad activity and its impact on the Plymouth community. Lengthy captions accurately explain both the railroad aspects of the images and their local significance. Individuals are identified when known. Information provided will inform and please both rail aficionados and local historians. Maps, both local and further afield, help explain geographic relationships. Visitors who arrived at Plymouth by train included US presidents and various entertainers—these interesting travelers are given a chapter. The presentation is chronological with nine chapters. A page of text begins each chapter before the extensive captions take over. The various railroad companies over the years—principally Pere Marquette, Chesapeake & Ohio, and CSX—are enumerated. Facilities, including the roundhouses, stations, and yards, get their due as do customers, passenger trains, and train wrecks. The relationship of the railroad to businesses in [End Page 128] Plymouth is described, particularly hotels and restaurants that catered to early travelers, and firms that shipped manufactured goods and farm products by rail. This reviewer wishes train schedules had been reproduced to show the frequency and destinations of trains in the passenger heyday. At various times and seasons, passengers could board at Plymouth for Columbus, OH, the New River Gorge in West Virginia, Richmond and Newport News, VA, plus Detroit, Petoskey, Lansing, and Grand Rapids. Pullman cars were available on some trains; Plymouth was a decidedly mainline location. Interurban lines (electric intercity services) that connected Plymouth with Northville, Wayne, and beyond from 1899 to 1927 are accorded a chapter. The trolley-type route through downtown Plymouth is a revelation, with especially good local photos. The Plymouth Historical Museum proudly displays a restored CSX caboose on a short track south of its building. Plymouth Railroads concludes with a chapter depicting the process of acquiring, refurbishing, and installing this iconic piece of historic railroad equipment. This Arcadia "Images of Rail" book is well researched and written, providing valuable insight into Plymouth history and a fresh look at a piece of southeastern Michigan railroad history. Bill McKnight Retired Corporate Secretary, Grand Trunk Western Railroad Copyright © 2021 Central Michigan University

Measuring U.S. 19th Century Economic Activity Using Unexploited Railway and Postal Micro-level Data

For the past several years, we have presented and published studies based on postal related data, from postmaster cash books and the Official Register, where we use postmaster salary data as a measure of local, highly disaggregate proxies for general economic activity at town and village level. Using micro-level, high frequency, nationally uniform and previously unknown data, we will report on the outcome of measuring levels of economic activity, political influence and social mobility phenomena. In our latest work, we will use a recently published work of railroad history investments in the 19th century. The railroad history we have is highly detailed, naming particular towns and routes. Our own micro data will allow us to associate our postmaster data with railway town information at the same micro level. Our data will also allow us to report the economic activity of non-railway towns. We will then have, at the micro-level, bi-annual comparisons made over the life of the railway routes. The relative economic, political and demographic impact of railway investment will be examined. For example, as we have the names, birthplaces and ethnic origins of postmasters in addition to their salaries. We can measure not just differences in economic activity between railway and non-railway towns but even examine questions like: "Are the railway towns places where new immigrants get to be postmasters more quickly than elsewhere?" Our larger purpose is to advertise our ever-expanding postal based dataset, which provides information of interest to economists, sociologists, historians and political scientists.

제정러시아의 철도 역사에 관한 소고 : 시베리아 횡단철도와 중앙아시아 철도를 중심으로

This article explores Imperial Russia’ Railways history examining particularly Trans‐Siberian Railways and Central Asia Railways. This paper deals with the importance and essence of establishing Railways in Imperial Russia’ times to understand imperialism and colonialism. The history of the Russian railways is the expansion history of the empire and serves as a barometer of Russiaʹs centrifugal development. The construction of the railways was influenced by the necessity of the economic market which existed in European empires at the time, and railway contributed to economic development. And the construction of the railway was connected with the communication that was developed at that time. This study on the Russian railroad history can be regarded as a barometer to understand the various historical characteristics of Russia by deriving the basic contents and implications of imperialism and railway development.BR In particular, the Trans‐Siberian Railway is a ʺmajor leagueʺ railway line connecting Europe and Asia. Russia went to the Pacific, and Russia connected to the end of the East by railway line. This railway line opened a huge area of the empire through the transportation network. And also, Central Asian railways, like the Trans‐Siberian railways, had strategic and military purposes, but basically had economic value. Russian elites and leaders used abundant raw materials on the Silk Road to meet the need to develop the metropolitan industry of the empire.BR Chapter II examines the general construction process and characteristics of the Russian railways in the time of the Imperial Russia. Chapter III review the construction process and characteristics of the trans‐Siberian railways. Chapter IV analyzes the Asian conquest of 19th century Russia and the characteristics of the Central Asian railroad as a whole.

Forging the Bee Line Railroad 1848–1889: The Rise and Fall of the Hoosier Partisans and Cleveland Clique by Arthur Andrew Olson III

Reviewed by: Forging the Bee Line Railroad 1848–1889: The Rise and Fall of the Hoosier Partisans and Cleveland Clique by Arthur Andrew Olson III Paul Yandle Forging the Bee Line Railroad 1848–1889: The Rise and Fall of the Hoosier Partisans and Cleveland Clique. By Arthur Andrew Olson III. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2017. Pp. xxix, 228.) Arthur Andrew Olson's meticulous scouring of railroad records forms the basis for his reconstruction at the micro level of the fairly common American [End Page 196] story of local and regional antebellum railroad investors envisioning a railroad to boost their portion of a state, then finding themselves trapped in a corporate game that is far beyond their ability to play. Olson also reveals the role that express companies, holding companies, and predatory freight agreements played after the Civil War in the consolidation of regional railroads into networks controlled by a handful of powerful interests. Olson's work centers on the Bee Line between Cleveland and Indianapolis. His story begins with two local roads, the Madison and Indianapolis (M&I) and the Indianapolis and Bellefontaine (I&B). The M&I was an Indiana road chartered in 1832 as a state-supported corporation and reorganized by private investors ten years later. Madison, Indiana, sits along the Ohio River, and the goal of M&I's boosters was to provide Indianapolis with an outlet to the Ohio River Valley. A leading force behind the M&I was John Brough, a Marietta, Ohio, native and Cincinnati newspaper man who became the road's president in 1848. Olson argues that Brough was one of the first midwestern railroad investors to look toward the Mississippi River; he hoped to tied the M&I with other roads that would provide Indianapolis with access to St. Louis. The I&B was the brainchild of boosters, including Indiana politicians Oliver H. Smith and David Kilgore, who hoped to join up with an existing road between Bellefontaine, Ohio, and Sandusky, Ohio, and eventually gain access to New York and other major eastern outlets. The I&B began losing local control when an operating agreement with the M&I gave a group of M&I investors known as the Hoosier Partisans an entree to take control of the I&B's board and oust Smith from the I&B presidency in 1853. However, the Hoosier Partisans themselves would face a challenge from officials for a third railroad, the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati (CC&C), which began as a connection between Cleveland and Columbus. With support from CC&C operatives, to whom Olson refers to as the "Cleveland Clique," John Brough became president of the I&B, which reorganized as the Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Cleveland (IP&C). For several years, the Hoosier and Cleveland factions struggled for control of the IP&C. After the Civil War and a series of reorganizations, however, a new generation of leadership came along that led to the IP&C and the CC&C falling under the control of William H. Vanderbilt. Olson lets the reader know up front that he is not an academic historian and freely admits in the book's front matter that he has made sparse use of up-to-date, scholarly secondary sources, and that his work does not fit well into larger thematic historiographical conversations (one of his endnotes cites Wikipedia as a source of biographical information for steamboat pioneer James Rumsey). Anyone who has dealt with nineteenth-century railroad history will recognize the problems Olson faced with his primary sources: the loose, [End Page 197] inconsistent nomenclature used for roads in nineteenth-century newspaper accounts; the often maddening lack of first names; and the secret nature of under-the-table deals that make primary-source narratives intentionally vague. In part because of these challenges and in part because of the byzantine complexity of the web of roads with which he had to deal, Olson's narrative tends to become bogged down with detail at times. Passive voice tends to muddy the narrative and, occasionally, the degree of detail Olson gives to peripheral issues masks the larger direction of the narrative, making important thematic moments anticlimactic. A timeline, organizational flowcharts...

The Railroad and the Pueblo Indians: The Impact of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe on the Pueblos of the Rio Grande, 1880–1930 . By Richard H. Frost.

In The Railroad and the Pueblo Indians , Richard H. Frost gives us a thumbnail history of the Santa Fe Railroad with a focus on New Mexico. The railroad’s managers drove the line into the territory in 1879, despite the Southwest’s paltry economic promise “more out of temperament than reason” (p. 23). Geographic considerations unmitigated by any sensitivity to the wishes of the peoples whose lands were crossed dictated that tracks passed near or even through Pueblo villages. While Frost relies almost exclusively on secondary sources for his railroad history, the book’s real contribution is the story it tells of the effect of the railroad on the Pueblos and what followed in its wake. The negative impacts included trains killing Indians and their livestock, rights-of-way ruining crops and vital irrigation systems, the appropriation of scarce water, and the undermining of access to and ownership of land. Frost also describes the much broader avalanche of change—settlers with their own animals seeking good grazing, laws, schools, disease, and a host of inquisitive artists and social scientists, to name a few.

Franz Keller-Leuzinger’s Exploration of the Amazon and Madeira Rivers During the Brazilian Empire: Press and Nation

The relationship between travelers and the Amazon River is a subject that, for a long time, has been enticing researchers of different disciplines and from many parts of the world. Such as the river, the subject also seems endless. This paper seeks to contribute a small fragment to the larger discussion by narrating the journey of the German draftsman, cartographer, engineer and painter Franz Keller-Leuzinger through the repercussion of his writings in the Brazilian and international press of the time. Although his work has already been used as reference for researches on railroad history and photography, there are few studies dedicated exclusively to this explorer, who remains almost unknown. We seek to highlight this traveler in an attempt to understand issues related to the perception of the Amazon region by the end of the Brazilian Empire, and the contemporary projects to integrate that region to the rest of the country, within the process of building a sense of nationality based on the territory’s grandeur.

Review

132 Michigan Historical Review John Gaertner. The Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway: A History of the Lake Superior District’s Pioneer Iron Ore Hauler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Pp. 349. Appendix. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Maps. Notes. Cloth, $49.95. Formed in 1887 from earlier short-line railroads, the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway (DSS&A) served Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin until it was merged into the Soo Line in 1961. At its most extensive, it ran from Duluth, Minnesota, through northern Wisconsin to Sault Ste. Marie and St. Ignace, Michigan. The latter towns were as close as it ever got to the Atlantic seaboard. The road was controlled through nearly all of its history by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which treated it as something of a stepchild. As the book’s subtitle indicates, the DSS&A served the Upper Peninsula’s iron fields but it also carried the region’s timber products and passengers as well. Competing with other roads for the traffic of a thinly populated territory, it seldom made money. When the area’s iron and timber resources became depleted and highways increasingly cut into passenger and freight traffic, the road frequently trimmed its services and trackage. It never became part of an intercontinental trunk line as its promoters occasionally hoped. The Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway is a business history written from management’s point of view. Labor and community relations are seldom mentioned. The text, moreover, is exceedingly dense. John Gaertner has done a more than commendable job of research into the road’s records and related sources. He has produced a reference book that no one should ever need to duplicate. But there is a serious forest vs. trees problem: seventy-four years of relentless operational detail are so rarely leavened by summary or evaluation that the book is a burden to read. Of great help, on the other hand, are the maps amply distributed throughout the book, something that cannot be said of every railroad history. There are many illustrations as well, primarily of rolling stock. And finally there is an appendix containing for the years 1886 to 1960 a complete locomotive roster; a fifteen-page list of all stations with the years in which they operated; and a year-by-year list of operating statistics—including miles covered, earnings, expenses, passengers carried, and freight tonnage moved. John Gaertner has done this part of his work very well indeed. Allen W. Trelease University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Emeritus ...

A journey into Florida railroad history

A journey into Florida railroad history

Iron Horse Imperialism: The Southern Pacific of Mexico, 1880-1951. By Daniel Lewis. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. xviii, 179 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-8165-2604-8.)

Daniel Lewis offers an examination of the Southern Pacific of Mexico Railroad (SPdeMex), a one-time subsidiary of the sprawling and mighty Southern Pacific Railroad (sp). Although Don L. Hofsommer has written an authoritative and exhaustive history of the sp in the twentieth century (The Southern Pacific, 1901–1985, 1986), scholars have not focused on the SPdeMex. Yet Iron Horse Imperialism is not a typical railroad history, rather it treats the troubled and confusing relationship between SPdeMex and the Mexican government during the fifty-three years from 1898 (when the sp acquired the Sonora Railway from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and extended trackage deeper into Mexico) to 1951 (when the Mexican government acquired ownership). Lewis shows that the American-owned SPdeMex improved the transportation network for Mexico, contributing significantly to nation building. Indeed, the railroad fit well with the policies of President Porfirio Díaz's científicos (an influential group of positivist- and technology-oriented individuals), who saw the iron horse as an engine for progress. Moreover, after the Revolution of 1917 Mexico benefited by controlling more fully the economic, legal, and political aspects of SPdeMex. In fact, in the 1920s the government enticed sp executives to extend trackage through the difficult terrain between Tepic and La Quemada, forging a direct connection between Nogales, Guadalajara, and Mexico City. SPdeMex felt directly the shift in the Mexican-U.S. relationship that moved from one of financial partners before the revolution to antagonists. That change made for a difficult and at times tense relationship between the railroad and the government.

A Socio-Economic Study on Railroad History(Commemorative Speech,<Special Issue>History of Transport and Communications in the Yodo river)

A Socio-Economic Study on Railroad History(Commemorative Speech,<Special Issue>History of Transport and Communications in the Yodo river)

Company, State, and Region: Three Approaches to Railroad History

Railroad history has survived a near-death experience. Once at the leading edge of business history and the Chandlerian synthesis, this sub-discipline largely fell out of favor with academic audiences, becoming the province of the railfan. In recent years, however, a new generation of historians has reawakened interest in the railroads, often by adopting perspectives alien to the traditions of first-generation railroad history. A prolific Don Hofsommer has not only contributed to this reinvigoration of an academic discipline, he has also incorporated some of the best recent railway history into volumes targeted at amateur historians. Each book embodies a different approach to the construction of railroad history and although their level of relevance to academic historians varies considerably, they offer compelling insights into the diversity of approach and audience that characterizes modern railroad history. This variety reflects the

Company, State, and Region: Three Approaches to Railroad History

Company, State, and Region: Three Approaches to Railroad History

Tredegar, Newcastle, Baltimore: The Swivel Truck as Paradigm of Technology Transfer

Claims and counterclaims of precedence of invention were once the stock-in-trade of technical history. Not only were engineers' professional reputations and fortunes at stake but aggressive nationalism also stood to lose or gain. Even now, it is the nation-state, whether initiating or receiving, that focuses scholarly studies of technology transfer.1 These have concentrated on industries in which governments restrict the movement of labor and devices—and perhaps also actively support industrial espionage. In contrast, studies of individual technologies are more likely to emphasize how they were freely observed and diffused. Innovations in ship design, for instance, were adapted at the governmental level by navy yards and from creek to creek by shipwrights.2 The dynamics of transfer clearly varied considerably from one type of technology to another, and the scale might be local or regional as well as national. Local economic factors might ensure that diffusion was not uniform within the national group. Frederick Gamst [End Page 778] developed this point in his study of early British-American railroad technology transfer: "Diffusion is neither ensured, nor, when it occurs, slavishly imitative. Specific elements of the technology and operations of British railroads not useful for the particular conditions in America—such as the limited amount of investment funds and the sparse and dispersed population—were not fully adopted." Gamst categorizes railroad technology transfer from the "mother culture" under four types: first, the movement of graphics, including writing, drawings, and diagrams; second, the personal observation and experience of visiting engineers; third, migration of technicians; and fourth, diffusion of machines, including models.3 John White Jr. and others have also extensively researched railroad technology transfer from Britain in the early period, yet detailed accounts of particular aspects of this process can still add to our understanding both of railroad history and of the dynamics of transfer. Railroads were there for all to see, simple enough in conception but calling for significant levels of capital investment. Their development reflects the work of both artisans and college-educated engineers. Furthermore, we now know much more about the minutiae of development and about the important regional dimensions within British technical cultures. This article offers just such an account, concerning the transfer of the swivel truck or bogie—the separate wheeled subframes found on both locomotives and cars, attached to a main frame or platform by kingpins or the equivalent—during the period from 1797 to the mid-1830s. * * * "It is generally believed that the railroad system was imported into this country from England full grown, but such is not the case." So wrote Horatio Allen to William Brown, who added his own explanation: "There was this difficulty in the way of introducing an English engine upon an American road: In England the roads were virtually straight or with very long curves; but in America they were full of curves."4 The American railroad system was, by this reckoning, only a very partial transfer of technology from England; the topography and natural resources of the United States, as well as the different amounts of capital available, called for different answers to both civil engineering and mechanical engineering problems. Among these answers, it has been claimed, was the swivel truck. [End Page 779] Yet at least one American authority suggested that the swivel truck was not an American invention. Zerah Colburn wrote in 1871 that it had been recommended by Robert Stephenson to a deputation of American engineers in 1828.5 This might seem unlikely, in that the swivel truck did not form part of the Stephenson traction system.6 The Stephenson railroad had to that point only operated through comparatively undemanding territory—the low hills of northeast England, where it evolved from the wooden colliery wagon way, and the farmlands of Lancashire. There had been no need to negotiate mountain bluffs and deep valleys such as faced American railroad pioneers, and consequently little need to develop rolling stock adapted for...

Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Jacksonian New England (review)

Reviewed by: Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Jacksonian New England Albert Churella (bio) Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Jacksonian New England. By Michael J. Connolly. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003. Pp. ix+210. $44.95. If you want to understand politics, first you have to understand railroads. That is the case, at least, in parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts from the late 1830s well into the 1840s. Railroad development dominated political discourse while ripping apart established political alliances. More compellingly, the railroad issue allows historians to develop a richer understanding of the complex attitudes that Jacksonian Democrats exhibited toward business enterprise and economic development. Michael Connolly explores these issues in a book that is persuasively argued even if lacking some of the scope and analytical sophistication of Steven Usselman's Regulating Railroad Innovation, Colleen Dunlavy's Politics and Industrialization, or Gerald Berk's Alternative Tracks. Jacksonian Democrats opposed railroad expansion in New Hampshire, not because they opposed capitalism and property rights but because they were trying to defend a particular vision of capitalism and property rights—a vision of private property that guaranteed independence through economic self-sufficiency. Railroads threatened the private sphere on three counts. First, eminent domain gave the state the power to seize private property, rather than safeguard it. Second, the railroads usurped the traditionally public responsibility for mail delivery. And, finally, there was a clear conflict of interest when elected officials (including Governor Isaac Hill) simultaneously invested in the railroads that they were supposed to control. What followed was a seesaw battle that pitted radical, antirailroad Democrats against their more conservative colleagues, with the only real winners being the prorailroad Whigs. The acrimonious debate culminated in the Railroad Bill of 1840. This act, by repealing 1836 legislation that granted railroads the right of eminent domain, effectively halted railroad construction in the state. But the victorious radicals soon realized that they had gone too far. First they exempted individual railroads from the terms of the 1840 legislation, and later they repealed the law altogether. Ultimately, legislators and the public realized that railroads had a quasi-public function. They should be allowed special, state-sanctioned authority, in the [End Page 846] form of eminent domain, but they should also be subject to state authority and the will of the people, in the form of a state railroad commission. Surprisingly, some of the most vociferous opponents of railroad expansion hailed from the more economically developed southeastern region of the state, which was already tied to New England's incipient railroad network. While enthusiastically supporting an initial wave of railroad construction, Whigs in Massachusetts divided over further development. "Vested Rights Whigs" argued that the construction of competing lines threatened the stability and public trust that the state had implicitly awarded to pioneering firms. "Opportunity Whigs" had a different vision of the role of the state, one that emphasized its obligation to provide its citizens with access to additional rail lines. In their view, public demand for service took precedence over private property rights. Massachusetts Whigs were particularly concerned about the impact of the planned industrial community of Lowell. Outlying communities sought to use the railroad to tap into Lowell markets, or rival Lowell, or defend themselves from Lowell. As the long, convoluted story of railroad development in Essex County indicates, Whig elites could not agree on precisely what they wanted railroad development to accomplish. As a result, public support for railroad construction produced mixed results. Overall (and this should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied railroad history), railroad development in Massachusetts and New Hampshire was a distinctly mixed blessing. Some communities benefited from railroad development, others suffered, and still others seemed unaffected. Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Jacksonian New England provides an insightful and effective summary of the political implications of technological change. The book is, nonetheless, very much an examination of political history, and not the history of technology. While newspaper editorials and legislative documents provide the bulk of the source material, records relating to the railroad companies themselves are largely absent. Railroads are treated as a black box—just sort of "there," ready to be pulled, prodded, manipulated, defined, and redefined by a...

A critical analysis of the California state railroad museum's orientation films

This paper examines the California State Railroad Museum's (CSRRM) 1981 and 1991 orientation films’ contribution to defining California railroad history. Orientation films are often over‐looked in terms of their contribution to the production of memory and public history. As a case study, the CSRRM's films are interesting because they replaced their original orientation film in 1991 with a main change being the addition of ethnic minorities in California railroad history. Examining these films for changes and similarities in their messages provides an informative contribution to the field of communication in terms of how the museum location and the documentary film form work together to naturalize dominant ideology. I argue that the CSRRM visitor is not situated as agent and that both orientation films represent a hegemonic ideology that defines technology as exclusively positive by using a nostalgic lens that denies voice to those who experienced the railroad's racial and economic inequities.

The Railroad Passenger Car: An Illustrated History of the First Hundred Years, with Accounts by Contemporary Passengers (review)

When the first edition of August Mencken's The Railroad Passenger Car appeared in 1957, it was an important book for several reasons. Its publication by Johns Hopkins University Press helped to boost further the academic credentials of the field of railroad history, which at the time remained dominated by hobbyists and buffs, many of them dedicated researchers and skillful writers who produced an enormous and useful body of popular literature. Mencken himself was a civil engineer who specialized in projects involving railroad construction.

Studies in Transport History Series (review)

Reviewed by: Studies in Transport History Series * H. Roger Grant (bio) Studies in Transport History Series. Edited by John Armstrong. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996. Recently the editorial board of the Journal of Transport History (JTH), published at the University of Manchester in England, decided on an unusual book-publishing venture. It would produce a six-volume Studies in Transport History series, in which important articles from JTH on five major subject areas would be reprinted. The titles are Air Transport; Canals and Inland Navigation; Coastal and Short Sea Shipping; Railways, volumes 1 and 2, and, finally, Road Transport in the Horse-Drawn Era. As a result, the editorial board has made available mostly forgotten and relatively inaccessible pieces of transportation scholarship. After all, the vast majority of American academic libraries and, of course, most scholars lack a complete run of the JTH. Rather than merely reprinting important pieces, each volume contains an introduction in which the assigned editor places the republished works in an appropriate framework. The JTH editorial board has sensibly selected a combination of transport modes. The fact that two volumes deal with railroads is understandable, since historically this mode has had the greatest overall impact on modern society. Coverage is impressive. Although the JTH is English-based, its volumes include global happenings. For example, D. L. Lightner’s study, [End Page 549] “Railroads and the American Economy: The Fogal Thesis in Retrospect,” and A. C. Mierzejewski’s “German National Railway between the World Wars: Modernisation or Preparation for War?” are included. The editor of this volume, Terry Gourvish, has penned a thoughtful introduction, “Railways in the Macro-economy,” a benefit to the reader. Although this review can hardly cover specific contributions (they total sixty-six), additional observations are appropriate. When the literature of transportation in America is considered, the focus has been largely on rail rather than air, animal, canal, or sea. Admittedly, volumes of this series predominantly focus on the British experience; still, the pieces included hold considerable value for students of American nonrail transport topics. Since no subject should be written in a historical vacuum, an article by A. D. George, “Aviation and the State: The Grahame-White Aviation Company, 1912–1923,” offers a valuable context in which to consider the pioneer years of commercial aviation in the United States or elsewhere. If there is a weakness in these six published works, it is the lack of a cumulative or an individual volume index. Yet a table of contents provides some assistance in finding the desired pieces. Finally, the overall scholarly quality of the articles is a superb advertisement for acquiring a subscription to the Journal of Transport History. H. Roger Grant Dr. Grant is chair of the history department at Clemson University, where he edits Railroad History. He has written more than a dozen books on railroad history. Footnotes * Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer. Copyright © 1998 Society for the History of Technology