Scenery on the Pennsylvania Railroad
Title
Scenery on the Pennsylvania Railroad
Description
Album of photographs documenting the Philadelphia, Middle, and Pittsburgh divisions of the Pennsylvania Railroad, incorporated in 1846. The consolidated company sought to build a trunk route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh through the Allegheny mountains in order to compete with the Erie Canal for freight traffic. In 1854, rail passage through the Alleghenies via the "Horse Shoe Curve" was achieved and spurred the establishment and growth of the several towns depicted along the route., Photographs depict stations, sites, landmarks, and landscape and townscape views along the Pennsylvania Railroad. Titles include No. 1 Ardmore Station ; No. 2 Bryn Mawr Station; No. 3 Bridge at Conways at Conewago; No. 5 Mount Union; No. 6 Susquehanna Bridge at Rockville (i.e., first bridge replaced in 1877); No. 7 Track Tank; No. 8 Jack Narrows; No. 9 Triple Track; No. 12 Bryn Mawr Hotel; No. 13 Coatesville Bridge; No. 16 Powers Run Allegheny River; No. 21 Sample track near Harmersville; No. 25 East from Harmersville; No. 26 Butler; No. 29 On the Kiskimenitus below Leechburg; No. 36 Greensburg near Huffs; No. 39 Hawkins; No. 40 West of Derry; No. 41 East of Morgan; No. 42 West of Beattys Station; No. 43 Monastery West of Latrobe; No. 44 1 1/2 miles East of S. W. Penna.; No. 46 Westmoreland Coal Co.; No. 47 Braddocks, Port Perry and Steel Works; No. 48 Westmoreland Landscape; No. 49 Stewarts Sample Track; No. 50 Section of Y at Walls; No. 51 Greensburg Station ; No. 53 West of Pack Saddle; No. 55 Lockport; No. 56 Below Conemaugh Furnace; No. 58 Cresson (Panorama); No. 61 Allegheny Tunnel , Galitzen; No. 64 Soap Fat; No. 57 Cresson (Panorama); No. 59 Kittanning from McGarveys; No. 65 Pulpit Rock; No. 67 From McKees Gap; No. 76 Bellefonte; No. 78 Mill Hall; No. 79 Birmingham; No. 80 Union Furnace and Station ; No. 81 Spring Creek; No. 82 Allegheny Tunnel; No. 83 Tyrone and Clearfield; No. 84 Grade on the Tyrone and Clearfield; No. 85 Bellefonte Gap;, No. 86 Mule Shoe and Deep Fill; No. 88 Pack Saddle East; No. 90 Logan House, Altoona, Pa.; No. 96 Jack Narrows, Mapleton; No. 97 Entrance to Jack Narrows; No. 98 Reservoir; No. 99 Bedford Springs; No. 100 View from Bedford Springs; No. 101 Bedford from Wickershams; No. 102 Below Bedford, Devils Backbone; No. 103 Bedford; No. 104 McVeytown Station; No. 105 Mount Dallas; No. 106 Mapleton; No. 107 Huntington; No. 108 Tuscarora Valley; No. 109 Sentinel Rock; No. 110 Tyrone Forges; No. 113 Standard Track, Lewistown Narrows; No. 114 From Centre of Susquehanna Bridge; No. 115 Terrace Mountain, Mill Creek; No. 116 From West End of Susquehanna Bridge; No. 117 Upper Mann’s; No. 118 Lewistown Narrows; No. 119 Susquehanna Bridge; No. 121 Standard Track at Newport; No. 123 Across the Allegheny; No. 127 General View of Bryn Mawr; No. 124 Saltzburg; No. 130 Bryn Mawr; No. 131 Bryn Mawr; No. 138 Irwin Station; No. 139 Sample Track, Wynnewood Station ; No. 140 Haverford College; No. 142 Haverford College Station; No. 147 Bridge at Columbia [Wrightsburg?] Pa.; No. 148 Wayne Station; No. 151 Terminus at Delaware City; No. 154 Harrisburg from Fort Washington ; No. 150 Chiques (i.e., Chickie’s Rock); No. 153 Henry Clay, Chiques and Marietta; No. 158 Landenburg; No. 159 Columbia Tunnel; and No. 162 Louella Residence of J. Henry Askin., Photographs include railroad tracks, locomotives and railcars, railroad equipment, bridges, tunnels, rock formations, mountains, passes, mills, furnaces, coal and steel works, hotels, Victorian-style residences, wooden dwellings and sheds, canal houses and canals, telegraph poles, townscape, farmsteads, marshland, rivers, and wooden fences. Several images, particularly views of stations, also depict posed figures, including an African American man at the Haverford College Station (No. 142). Details in other photographs include rail tracks with a water trough (No. 7); amateurishly hand-painted advertising text on a wood fence (No. 36); the "Exchange Hotel" near the Allegheny Tunnel in Galitzen (No. 61); men seated on the cow catcher of a partially visible locomotive at the grade on the Tyrone and Clearfield (No. 84); a gazebo-style pavilion at Bedford Springs (No. 199); oil tanks and drums (No. 123); the Pennsylvania Gas Coal Co. Office, a pedestrian bridge crossing over a creek, and the “Tom Smith Peanut Man” shed near Irwin Station (No. 138); the “Columbia” barge (No. 147); a "Water-Line of Boston" sailing vessel at the terminus at Delaware City (No. 151); the Martin Landenburger mill in Landenburg (No. 158); and the greenhouse attached to the residence on the Louella estate in Wayne (No. 162)., Photographer’s imprint inscribed in negative of several of the photographs: F. Gutekunst, Philada. or F. Gutekunst, Photogr., Philada., Date inferred from publication date of stereographs with similar content by the photographer. See stereo - Gutekunst - Views [P.9058.1-.142]., Photograph No. 4, 10-11, 14-15, 17-20, 22-24, 27-28, 30-35, 37-38, 45, 52, 54, 60, 62-63, 66, 68-75, 77, 87, 89, 91-95, 112, 120, 122, 125-126, 128-129, 132-137, 141, 143-146, 149, 152, 155-157, 160-161 not included in album., Inscribed in pencil upper right corner on mount of photograph No. 1: 40 guards., Inscribed in pencil below image on mount of photograph No. 1: about 1876., Inscription in pencil below title on mount of photograph No. 147: Wrightsburg. “Columbia” in title circled., See Gutekunst (Pennsylvania Railroad) research file., Gift of the Greer family in memory of David St. John Greer who after starting as a co-op student at Drexel University spent his working life with the Pennsylvania Railroad with the exception of a period of service with the U.S. Navy during WWII., Lib. Company. Annual report, 2014, p. 49-50., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Gutekunst, a prominent Philadelphia photographer, published a series of Pennsylvania Railroad views stereographs in 1875.
Creator
Gutekunst, Frederick, 1831-1917, photographer
Date
[ca. 1875]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.2014.74]
[Photographic Society of Philadelphia's Chesapeake & Ohio Canal excursion, May 21-29, 1882 album]
Title
[Photographic Society of Philadelphia's Chesapeake & Ohio Canal excursion, May 21-29, 1882 album]
Description
Album belonging to Philadelphia amateur photographer John C. Browne. Primarily documents the Photographic Society of Philadelphia's Chesapeake & Ohio Canal excursion (May 21-29, 1882), including views of the Falls of the Potomac, Point of Rocks, Md., Harpers Ferry, Va., and Bedford, Pa. Society members attending the excursion included Charles Barrington, Joseph William Bates, Charles Pancoast, Frederick Graff, Samuel Corlies, George Bacon Wood, Samuel Sartain, W.H. Walmsley, Francis T. Fassitt, lens maker Joseph Zentmayer, Thomas H. McCollin, and Browne. Views depict scenes during the excursion along the canal, including canal barges; bridges, aquaducts; Paw Paw Tunnel; John Brown's Fort; a white Bedford woman attending an outside bake oven; men and boys, including a barefooted African American boy, sitting upon a porch of an old Maryland mill; the Photo Party at Patterson's Creek, Md.; a horse team pulling an oak log near Harper's Ferry; an old Bedford mill; and a barn covered with circus posters. Additional views depict the Brooklyn Bridge; sailing vessels on the New York Harbor, including the steamboat Maryland; and animals at the Philadelphia Zoo. Other animal portraiture includes horses posed with African American handlers (p. 26-27), a cow and calf at Forrest Hill, PA, a white girl on a pony ride at Central Park, and family dogs. Also includes a portrait of Lizzie Gilpin at Forrest Hill., Title supplied by cataloger., Front free end paper signed John C. Browne., Blue cloth binding, with gilt and stamped: Album., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., See John C. Browne's "The Photographic Society of Philadelphia Annual Excursion, May 21-29, 1882," Philadelphia photographer 19 (July 1882), p. 213-215., See George Bacon Wood research file, copy of "Excursion of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia over the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, May 22 to 29th 1882. Read at meeting June 7th, 1882 by Geo. B. Wood.", Insert: handkerchief printed with photograph vignettes [P.9318a] removed and housed with Textiles Collection, Print Department., Gift of Col Getter, 1989., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Browne was a founder of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.
Creator
Browne, John C. (John Coates), 1838-1918, photographer
Date
[1882-1886]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9318]