Research Catalog

Title

Railroad empire across the heartland : rephotographing Alexander Gardner's westward journey / James E. Sherow ; photographs by John R. Charlton.

Author

Sherow, James Earl

Publication

Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Charlton, John R.
• Gardner, Alexander, 1821-1882

Description

x, 212 pages : illustrations (some color); 23 x 26 cm

Summary

Best known for his Civil War photographs, Alexander Gardner also documented the construction of the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division (later the Kansas Pacific Railroad), across Kansas beginning in 1867. This book presents recent photographs by John R. Charlton of the scenes Gardner recorded, paired with the Gardner originals and accompanied by James E. Sherow's discussion. Like most rephotography projects, this one provides fascinating information about the changes in the landscape over the last century and a half. The book presents ninety pairs of Gardner's and Charlton's photographs. In all of Charlton's photos he duplicates the exact location and time of day of the Gardner originals. Sherow uses the paired images to show how Indian and Anglo-American land-use practices affected the landscape. As the Union Pacific claimed, the railroad created an American empire in the region, and Charlton's rephotography captures the transformation of the grasslands, harnessed by the powerful social and economic forces of the railroad.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Gardner, Alexander, 1821-1882 > Travel > West (U.S.)
• Gardner, Alexander, 1821-1882
• 1800 - 1899
• Frontier and pioneer life > West (U.S.) > Pictorial works
• Railroads > West (U.S.) > History > 19th century > Pictorial works
• Repeat photography > West (U.S.)
• Landscape photography > West (U.S.)
• Frontier and pioneer life
• Landscape photography
• Railroads
• Repeat photography
• Territorial expansion
• Travel
• Repeat photography > Kansas
• Landscape photography > Kansas
• West (U.S.) > History > 1860-1890 > Pictorial works
• United States > Territorial expansion > Pictorial works
• West (U.S.) > Pictorial works
• United States
• West United States
• Kansas > Pictorial works

Genre/Form

• History
• Pictorial works
• History.
• Pictorial works.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. From Alexander Gardner to John Charlton -- 2. "The new pioneer of population and settlement" : the making of an American imperial landscape -- 3. Imperial photographic pairings -- Kansas on the edge -- The "Free State" district -- Trails to rails in Kansas -- Westward the course of empire -- 4. Stereographic pairings -- Epilogue: What kind of empire?

ISBN

• 9780826355096 (paperback : alkaline paper)
• 0826355099 (paperback : alkaline paper)
• 9780826355102 (electronic) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2013049089

OCLC

• 878048760
• SCSB-10933129

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library