Journal: Railroad Heritage

Railroad Heritage is a registered trademark of the Center.

Railroad Heritage (ISSN 1530-1559) is published by the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, P.O. Box 259330, Madison, WI 53725-9330. It is mailed to annual donors of $40 or more, of which $10 is reserved for a subscription. Receive your copy with your gift of support today. Institutional or library subscriptions are $50 a year.

Railroad Heritage articles are listed in Kalmbach's Model Train Magazine Index.

No. 20, 2009, Walker Evans, American Communities, and the Railroad

Railroad Heritage No. 20 features "Walker Evans, American Communities, and the Railroad" by Tony Reevy, an article based on his presentation at our 2008 conference. Reevy writes that "Evans (1903-75) was one of the most noted and original American photographers of the twentieth century, but has not yet received sufficient recognition for his works that focus on the American railroad." The issue also has our 2008 photo award winners in color on the cover and center pages from the theme "sense of place." Entrants to the 2008 award program responded with very high caliber images, resulting in a record number of awards. There's also a photo-story about William Henry Jackson's work for the Baltimore & Ohio exhibitions at two world’s fairs, and an announcement of a new inniative at railroadheritage.org.

No. 19, 2008, Ted Rose: The Artist's Early Photography

Railroad Heritage® No. 19, "Ted Rose: The Artist's Early Photography," focuses on the photographic accomplishments of Rose (1940-2002), known mostly for his stunning watercolors but who also was an excellent photographer as a youth and young man. It features 40 photographs, 37 of them by Rose, and one painting, plus essays by Robert Ewing, director emeritus of the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico; Robert Ludwig, who often traveled with Rose to photograph the trains; and John Gruber, president of the Center. Between 1956 and 1962, Rose followed trains and rode the rails in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala. His black-and-white photographs taken during the journeys capture the last days of active steam railroading in America. Their quality also hints at an artistic impulse that was expressed in his painting.

No. 18, 2007, Railroading Journeys

"Railroading Journeys," Railroad Heritage® No. 18, is a special retrospective issue devoted to the life and times of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg whose books changed the way Americans think about--and look at--railroads and railroading. The 32-page issue has 59 photographs, 52 of them by Beebe or Clegg, some of them never before published. The issue considers their pictures afresh (each had a distinctive style), discusses some of the influences on their work, and defines their legacy. In their years of living in the West, beginning in 1950, Beebe and Clegg produced about thirty books, most of them devoted to railroading. A review in Railfan and Railroad (February 2008, page 56) calls attention to the introduction by Clegg's sister, Ann Clegg Holloway. Railroad History No. 197 (Fall-Winter 2007) devoted page five to the retrospective, praising its "analysis of composition, framing, and tonal elements" of the photographs by Beebe and Clegg. The Center's print publication, Railroad Heritage, now is complemented by an Internet archive, railroadheritage.org. You can see eight of the Beebe/Clegg photos at railroadheritage.org., with extensive text. You can obtain a copy of "Railroading Journeys" with an annual gift of at least $40, or buy individual copies for $14.95 (plus $4.50 per order for handling) on the Internet or by U.S. mail.

No. 17, 2007, Women in Railroading

No. 17 is a special issue about women in railroading with Shirley Burman as guest editor.

Contents

Railroadheritage.org, 2
Looking Ahead, 2
Conversations about Photography, 3
WOMEN IN RAILROADING
Where Were the Women? / Shirley Burman, 4
Jobs for Women "Come with a Price" / Doug Riddell, 12
The Mean Old Nontraditional Blues / Linda Grant Niemann, 20

No. 16, 2006

Railroad Heritage No. 16 looks at Glendive, Montana, a municipality where the freight trains still stop to change crews and the railroaders actively participate in the civic life of the town. This story--text by Jeff Brouws, photos by Joel Jensen--is about what many would deem an anachronism in 21st century America, the railroad town.

Contents

Railroad Work Exhibits on Display, 2
Looking Ahead, 2
Rose Program Moves West, 3
What is "Visual Culture and What Does It Have to Do With Railroads / George A. Talbot III and John O. Holzhueter, 4
Workers, Worldwide Win, 8
Ruminations on a Railroad Town: Glendive, Montana / Jeff Brouws and Joel Jensen, 12
Patents Show Diesel Development, 25
Milestones of American Dieselization, 26

More Special Issues

The Center has distributed the proceedings of the conference, "Iron Icon: The Railroad in American Art," as a special 72-page issue of Railroad Heritage (No. 14, 2005). The publication, in cooperation with the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, features the papers given by the nine speakers, accompanyied by 21 striking color and many more black and white images from the presentations. The cover is Willard F. Elms' Land of the Pueblos (after Villa), about 1949, one of the last images in a Santa Fe poster campaign that for some 50 years featured the southwestern landscape and its native inhabitants. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation funded the symposium, held April 22-23, 2004, at the Barriger Library. This high-quality publication is the largest ever issue of Railroad Heritage. John Stilgoe, a Harvard University professor, describes No. 14 as "a solid scholarly demonstration that railroad-industry advertising rewards close scrutiny as art and that the railroad depicted in non-industry illustration rolls deep into national and regional history and visual culture." Stilgoe is author of Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene (1983).

Another special issue, "Representations of Railroad Work, Past and Present," (No. 13, 2005) takes a fresh look at the people who made and make trains run: their culture, their skills, and their unseen importance to American life. For this issue, special editor Mark W. Hemphill, former editor of Trains magazine, and a former train dispatcher, brings together with photo editor John Gruber and noted authors, photographers, and historians a previously unseen sensitivity to railroad work. Is railroading "just another job?" No. To the people who do it, railroading is a lifestyle, a brotherhood, a culture with its own language and identity. To the public, railroading is unknown territory. But through photography and art, the obscuring veil can be peeled back. This special issue of Railroad Heritage is not the end product of a new understanding of railroad work, but only the beginning. The North American Railway Foundation provided major funding.

Click here for previous issues of Railroad Heritage.

Highlights