Special Collections Library tracks train history

Historians at the Special Collections Library have been down the tracks and back to gather materials about locomotives and railroading for an extensive collection of railroad material, much of it available online.

Images such as this old railroad bridge are part of an exhibit at the Special Collections Library in the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. Much of the railroading exhibit is available online, including The Locomotive World magazine. (Image Reproduction by Scott Galvin, U-M Photo Services)

The collection contains more than 14,000 items, and includes the monthly magazine The Locomotive World, which is available for viewing at: http://www.hti.umich.edu/r/railroad.

The site presents the Lima, Ohio, publication with volumes from 1909 to about 1916. It features articles about the patented locomotive designed by Michigan logger Ephraim Shay and advertisements from such companies as Detroit Lubricator and its Detroit locomotive flues, and Detroit Bullseye Locomotive Lubricator.

The Web site soon will contain items relating to American, Canadian, Mexican, British, French, German and Russian railroad companies and their rolling stock. They include annual reports, pamphlets, timetables, charters, stock certificates and other legal documents, surveys, advertising brochures, posters, artwork and archival collections and photographs, as well as monographs and commission reports from across the country.

The reports, manuscripts, photographs and monographs in the railroad portion of the Transportation History Collection on the 7th floor of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library offer a rich resource for students, faculty and researchers, says Kathleen Dow, associate librarian at the University Library.

"We have worked with people investigating topics such as 19th century business practices; the forces that drove the development of a transcontinental railroad in North America; the role of the government in national transportation initiatives; and studies on the history and development of locomotives and rolling stock," she says.

The publications in the collection are complemented by an extraordinary group of photographs, prints and artwork, Dow says. Photographs taken by Carleton E. Watkins, William H. Jackson and A.J. Russell, including several mammoth albumen prints, document the growth of the railroad westward, while the prints and original artwork of Otto Kuhler illustrate the ideal streamlined locomotive that references the Art Deco aesthetic of the 1920s, Dow says.

The Transportation History Collection is a body of printed and visual materials on the history of transportation, covering modes of transportation and the infrastructure that supports them. The 70,000-item collection includes rare books, pamphlets, photographs, brochures, prints, maps, timetables, guidebooks, engineering and architectural drawings and manuscripts, with materials ranging from the 16th to the 21st centuries.

The Special Collections Library is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays.

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