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]
Views of Fairmount Park Philadelphia 1866
Title
Views of Fairmount Park Philadelphia 1866
Description
Album of photographs of aerial and landscape views taken in the park during the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which celebrated the centennial of the United States through an international exhibition of industry, agriculture, and art. Photographs predominately depict views from observation towers at George's Hill and Lemon Hill. Images show the Centennial Exhibition grounds, including the buildings, monuments, ponds, 24th Ward Reservoir, and Centennial Station and tracks of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad; Fairmount Water Works; Girard College and surrounding neighborhood, including Brewerytown; the breweries of H. J. Walter (North Thirty-third and Thompson streets), Bergner & Engel (3200 block Thompson Street), F. A. Poth (North Thirty-first and Jefferson streets) and Bergdoll & Psotta (Twenty-ninth and Parish streets, built 1875); boat houses and landings near the waterworks; bridges, including the Wire Suspension Bridge at Fairmount, Girard Avenue Bridge, and New York Connecting Railroad Bridge; and cityscape. Also contains views of Wissahickon Creek and Fairmount Park, including Belmont Pumping Station, fountains, landscaped gardens, and the observation tower at George's Hill; the Lincoln and Humboldt monuments; signage on the Centennial pavilions; and park visitors., Title from black morocco binding, stamped front cover. Stamped with incorrect date., Spine stamped: Views. Fairmount Park 1866., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Select images reproduced in Kenneth Finkel’s Nineteenth-century photography in Philadelphia (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980).
Creator
Cremer, James, 1821-1893
Date
[1876]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.8465]
Views of Ashwood, Gulph Mills, and other sites in Delaware County and surrounding counties in Pennsylvania
Title
Views of Ashwood, Gulph Mills, and other sites in Delaware County and surrounding counties in Pennsylvania
Description
Album containing 24 photographs showing landscape views of Delaware County and portraiture of family and acquaintances. Images include exterior and interior views of the Leaming family estate Ashwood near Villanova and views of Conshohocken, Darby Creek near Lewis Mill, Valley Forge, Gulph and Morris mills and dams, Hammer Hollow, and farmland in Cream and Pleasant valleys. Also contains an image of Radnor Meeting House and a photographic reproduction of a cloud filled sky captioned "Sic Itur ad Astra" (i.e., thus you shall go the stars). Many of the views include Leaming's wife and children and others posed in parlors; with animals; on bridges and dirt paths; at brooks, creeks, spring houses, and barns; and in modes of transportion, including canoes and horse-drawn vehicles. Other portrait sitters include Alice Bourda and children Ernie Law, Tommy Gaffney, Henny Lewis, and Og Hoffman., Wooden binding., Title supplied by cataloger., Captions by Robert Waln Leaming on the recto and verso of the album pages., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., See LCP AR [Annual Report] 1999, p. 45-46., Gift of Mrs. Clifford Lewis III., Housed in phase box., Robert Waln Leaming, grandson of China Trade merchant Robert Waln (1765-1836), was a merchant by trade who also painted and practiced photography. He was married to Julia Scott, descended from the royal Scotts of Ancrum, with whom he had four children Rebecca, i.e., Reb (1850-1911); Mary, i.e., Mame (1851-1911); Julia, i.e., Duly (1854-1913), and Thomas (1856-1911). Leaming was also an active member of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia. His residence Ashwood, not to be confused with the Penn-Gaskell/DeCosta property of the same name (208 Ashwood Road, Villanova), was razed in the late 19th century.
Creator
Leaming, Robert Waln, 1824-1884, photographer
Date
ca. 1873
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9759.2]