Railroad Heritage, Spring 2018: McNair Evans, Stewart Buck, Award Winners

David Lester provides a stimulating commentary on McNair Evans’s thought-provoking photographs as they reflect shared experiences within the American cultural landscape. Evans is a Guggenheim fellow and a featured presenter at Conversations 2018. Kevin P. Keefe highlights the outstanding and vivid pastels of artist Stewart Buck. Winners of the 2017 John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards Program are also presented, featuring the top work in two different categories: “vision from the past” and “by the light of night.” The Center spotlights a new project for next year’s 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad called After Promontory: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Transcontinental Railroading. Archives manager Adrienne Evans offers her thoughts on how to understand and use finding aids in her first “Out of the Archives.” Hailey Paige, exhibitions and events coordinator, introduces a new column called “Inside the Exhibition” to give readers an inside look at one of the Center’s current traveling exhibitions. This edition features Milwaukee’s Beer Line. The Center also announces the publication of a new book featuring the photographs of Wallace Abbey entitled Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography.

$7.95, 48 pages, color and b/w

Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography

Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography, published by Indiana University Press in 2018 and written and edited by the Center’s Kevin P. Keefe and Scott Lothes, presents a cohesive and comprehensive collection of 184 photographs by Wallace W. Abbey. The authors drew from Abbey’s collection of 25,000 black-and-white negatives, which came to the Center in 2010. The 10×10-inch hardcover book, published by Indiana University Press in 2018, charts Abbey’s fifty-year career documenting the railroad industry. Beginning in the 1940s, Abbey masterfully combined journalistic and artistic vision to transform everyday moments in transportation into magical photographs. A photographer, journalist, historian, and railroad industry executive, he helped people from many different backgrounds understand and appreciate what was often taken for granted: a world of locomotives, passenger trains, big-city terminals, small-town depots, and railroaders. During his lifetime he witnessed and photographed sweeping changes in the railroad industry from the steam era to the era of diesel locomotives and electronic communication. Wallace W. Abbey: A Life in Railroad Photography profiles the life and work of this legendary photographer and showcases the transformation of transportation and photography after World War II.

$50 plus $5 for domestic shipping, hardcover, 10×10 inches, 240 pages, b/w

International shipping is available; please inquire by email at info [at] railphoto-art.org

Fred Springer’s South American Railways

Another album of Fred M. Springer selections is available online. The photographs focus on South American railways from Bolivia and Paraguay including this shot of Empresa Nacional de Ferrocarriles Bolivia 2-8-0 steam locomotive no. 9 or “Mururata” in Guaqui, Bolivia, on September 30, 1992.

View all the images at: www.railphoto-art.org/collections/springer/south-american-railways

Springer Collection Overview

Gift of Fred and Dale Springer
8,000 B&W negatives
50,000 color slides
1940s to 2000s
Coverage includes six inhabited continents, and especially the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America

Fred Springer’s Brazilian Railways

A new album of selections from our Fred M. Springer Collection are available online. Images feature Brazilian Railways including these Associação Brasileira de Preservação Ferroviária 4-6-0 wood-burning steam locomotives nos. 215 and 210 moving past a set of buildings and a large pile of fuel in Anhumas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 1, 1990.

View the entire album at: www.railphoto-art.org/collections/springer/brazilian-railways

Springer Collection Overview

Gift of Fred and Dale Springer
8,000 B&W negatives
50,000 color slides
1940s to 2000s
Coverage includes six inhabited continents, and especially the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America

Fred Springer’s African Railways

Another album of Fred M. Springer photographs are available. These selections include shots from Zambia and Zimbabwe such as a National Railways of Zimbabwe Garratt steam locomotive passing new concrete ties in the grassy terrain of Livingstone, Zambia on August 8, 1991.

View the entire album: www.railphoto-art.org/collections/springer/african-railways

Springer Collection Overview

Gift of Fred and Dale Springer
8,000 B&W negatives
50,000 color slides
1940s to 2000s
Coverage includes six inhabited continents, and especially the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America