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]
Photograph album
Title
Photograph album
Description
Photograph album belonging to Philadelphia amateur photographer John C. Browne. Contains landscape and architectural views of the Delaware Valley and Central Pennsylvania, informal portraits of family and friends, and canal boat excursions of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, including over the Pennsylvania Canal to Harrisburg (1879) and Morris Canal (1880). Images depict "Bartram's house, Gray's Ferry"; Cobbs Creek, including the Old Powder House; Wissahickon; Jay Cooke's Ogontz estate; Mill Creek (Lower Merion Township); the Philadelphia Zoo monkey house; Chelten Hills; Laurel Hill; Delaware Water Gap, including G. W. Childs arbor, Kittany House, Promontory, Lovers Leap, Young's Peak, and Mt. Minsi; falls, creeks, and Dingman's Ferry in Pike County, Pa.; sites along the Juniata Division of Pennsylvania Canal, including mill races, iron furnaces, Pennsylvania Rail Road bridges, and canal locks at or near Bridgeport, Dauphin, and Rockville; and sites along the Morris Canal, including canal boat planes and hoisting tower, Hopatcong Lake, Little Falls, and Passaic Falls., Other images show the English Cottage on the Centennial grounds (1877); strung hunted game and fish; landscape views of Sea Bright and Belvidere, N.J. and the Delaware near Torresdale; a posed "sweethearts" scene "On the Pennypack" (1878); and a group portrait of the Photographic Society (Samuel F. Corlies, Charles Pancoast, Charles Barrington, Samuel Sartain, Joseph William Bates, W. S. Vaux, Dr. Carl Seiler, Thomas H. McCollin, Thomas B. Craig) with cameras and fishing equipment during the Morris Canal excursion. Other portrait views include Mr. and Mrs. S. Fisher Corlies, Mamie Lloyd, Sallie Bacon, Jesse S. Graves, Alice E. Browne, Susie Hacker, Samuel Fox, and Charles Palmer. Some photographs show a photographer using his camera and several of the canal excursion views include the canal boats "Zuleika" (Pennsylvania Canal) and "Katie Kellogg" and her mule team "Tom & Baby" (Morris Canal)., Front free end paper signed John C. Browne., Photographs identified by inscriptions below images. Majority are date and some annotated "Washed Emulsion.", Red cloth binding, with gilt, and stamped on cover: Album., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., An article by Browne, "The Waterfalls of Pike County, Pa.," describing a trip to photograph natural scenery in Pike County appears in Philadelphia Photographer, Vol. XIII, no. 151 (July 1876), pages 208-211., LCP AR [Annual Reports] 1989 p. 33-34., Browne was a founder of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.
Creator
Browne, John C. (John Coates), 1838-1918, photographer
Date
1877-1880
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9317]
Photographic views of New City Building
Title
Photographic views of New City Building
Description
Albums of progress photographs of the early construction of City Hall built 1871-1901 on Penn Square after the designs of John McArthur, Jr. Photographs show different stages of the construction of the foundation and lower floor of the building between 1873 and 1875. Includes images of the dirt sub basement; construction materials, equipment, and workers; aerial views of the built foundation; partially completed walls and abutments; and studio views of columns and architectural ornaments. Several of the views include scaffolding; horse-drawn carts; pulleys; piles of construction debris; Pennsylvania Railroad cars on Market Street; and workers and well-dressed men, probably the commissioners, reviewing and posed on or near constructed parts of the building and construction materials. Views also show surrounding cityscape, including the Masonic Temple (Broad and Filbert); United States Mint (1331-1337 Chestnut Street); the Seventh Presbyterian Church (Broad Street above Chestnut Street); Pennsylvania Railroad Freight Depot (13th and Market); La Salle College High School (Filbert and Juniper); Sharpless & Watts, flooring tile (1325 Market Street); the spires of Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church (s.w. cor. Broad & Arch) and First Baptist Church (n.w. cor. Broad and Arch); and other surrounding businesses (beer hall, wall paper, and furniture) and residences., Volume 1 (Oct. 1873-Aug. 1874) contains two tipped in letters, dated December 26, 1873 and June 27, 1874, from President of the Commissioners for the Erection of the Public Buildings Samuel C. Perkins. Correspondence presents the stereographs, "authorized to be taken by the commissioners," as a means for the library to "have for preservation in [the] archives a complete photographic record of the progress of a work which under any aspect must be considered as of marked importance in our local history.", Stereographs numbered, dated, and printed with the series title "Views of Construction in Sub-Basement" or "Views of Construction" and the names of the architect, chief assistant, and board of commissioners on the verso., Calf bindings, polished and mottled., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Volume 1 image reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 116., Samuel C. Perkins, a Philadelphia lawyer, served as president of the Commissioners for the Erection of the Public Buidlings 1872-1891., Housed in phase boxes.
Creator
Cremer, James, 1821-1893
Date
1873-1875
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Cremer [(1) 23455.D & (2) 23455.D]