This photograph archive contains more than 900 images made by American photographer William Henry Jackson (18431942) during his tour of North Africa, Asia, Russia, Australia, and Oceania from 1894 to 1896. The World's Transportation Commission, an organization formed to aid American business interests abroad, commissioned Jackson for this trip.
The photographs, originally exhibited in Chicago's Field Columbian Museum, focus on transportation systems, especially railroads, as well as tourist sites, indigenous life, wildlife, and locations of natural beauty. Nearly 687 of the images are from lantern slides, many of which were hand-colored. Many of the photographs appeared in Harper's Weekly. This collection is valuable for those interested in late 19th-century photography, colonialism, and industrialization.
Writer Carol Bundy talks about the life of her great-great-great uncle, Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., a Boston abolitionist and industrialist eventually killed in the Civil War. The presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
"What You’ll Find at the Museum:
* 1906 New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk (later Pennsylvania) Railroad passenger station
* 1890's maintenance-of-way tool shed full of tools and other railway artifacts
* Turn-of-the-century crossing guard shanty
* Railcars lined up on the Museum's sidings
* Picnic tables and a pavilion for family reunions
* Artifacts from the many railroads that have operated on the Delmarva peninsula since the mid-1800's"
An engineering marvel originally built in 1884, the Georgetown Loop railroad fulfilled the hopes of Georgetown citizens to become a prosperous settlement connected to Denver and points east. In connecting Silver Plume and Georgetown, towns over 2 miles apart, the tracks scaled an elevation of 640 feet over mountainous terrain, requiring trestles, cuts, fills, loops, and curves totaling 4.5 miles. Today the Loop is once again a popular tourist attraction and an uncommon way to see the Clear Creek Valley. Along the route visitors may stop for guided tours of a historic silver mine. The park is located on 978 acres and includes an 1884 depot, the Morrison Interpretive Center, two 1860s mines, an 1871 mill building, four reconstructed mine buildings, a locomotive maintenance building, the 1874 Pohle House, and a new rolling stock shelter.
A second, individual website for the park can be found here.
The park offers a short film, train rides, tours, and exhibits.
Visitors to Steamtown can feel the heat from the firebox, hear the bell and whistle, smell the hot steam and oil of a past era. They can feel the ground vibrate under their feet, see the one-ton drive rods turn the wheels, and hear the chuff-chuff-chuff of the smokestack. Today, visitors can relive the era of steam as the engines come back to life. The cinders, grease, oil, steam, people, and stories of railroading have returned at Steamtown. Visitors may tour the History and Technology Museums or Roundhouse, explore special exhibits, or watch the movie "Steel and Steam." They can also join a Park Ranger or Volunteer on a guided tours of the Locomotive Repair Shops. Seasonally, visitors may want to experience the short train rides, longer train excursions, or Living History Programs.
The site offers a short film, exhibits, tours, educational programs, demonstrations, train rides, longer film screenings, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).
"Elkhart's National New York Central RR Museum recaptures the days when locomotives were symbols of progress, and ambassadors of goodwill across the country. The Museum was founded in 1987 and is an ever growing preserver of both local and national railroad heritage."
Students and Smithsonian National Museum of American History curators give a tour of the exhibition "America on the Move," which looks at how immigration and migration impacted American history and at the role of various forms of transportation.
To view this electronic field trip, select "America on the Move, Part One: Migrations, Immigrations, and How We Got Here" under the heading "Electronic Field Trips."
Greg Young and Tom Meyers explore the story of Pennsylvania Station, which involves more than just nostalgia for the long-gone temple of transportation designed by McKim, Meade, and White. In this podcast, find out why the original Penn Station was built to look so classical, why it was then torn down, and what strange behaviors the tunnels that connect it to New Jersey exhibit every night.
The Union Pacific Railroad Museum houses one of the oldest corporate collections in the nation. It includes artifacts, photographs, and documents that trace the development of the railroad and the American West. The Union Pacific Collection dates to the mid-1800s, featuring original editions of reports from survey teams that searched for the best land route to join the nation, east to west. Surveying equipment, early rail equipment, and artifacts from the construction of the nation's first transcontinental railroad tell the story of one of the world's construction marvels.
The site offers exhibits.
Completed by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1831, this National Historic Landmark is the oldest railroad station in America. The site showcases the people who built and operated America's first railroad, tells stories of soldiers and citizens caught in the turmoil of the Civil War, and highlights the clash of technology that transformed America's transportation systems from roads to rails.
The site offers exhibits, tours, and recreational and educational events (including living history events).