Sure.
Granger Country - A pictorial Social History of the Burlington Railroad
I personally am fascinated with the history of our fine country and the impact
the railroads had on this growth. I think that anybody that has an interest in
this type of history will be very happy with this book. The inside of the cover
has the following written:
"The pictures in this book, with the author's informed comment, present
unadorned, unsentimentalized, exactly as it was and is, the tremendous drama of
the movement west across America. Drawn from every source, many of them
reproduced here for the first time, they tell the graphic history of the
pioneer-farmer as he moved westward not only from our Atlantic states but from
Europe into the land that he was to make "the breadbasket of the nation" - the
corn-and-hog country; the wheat fields and the beet fields; the cattle ranges,
the sheep and cow pastures of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Plains. As
one of the greatest stories of the opening of our Western lands, it represents
the expansion and development of the American continent as a whole.
This pictorial social history also represents, in terms of one of the nation's
great railroads, the part which our developing transportation systems have
played in the story of the West. Here is the country as it looked at first from
horseback or the endgate of a covered wagon, then from the early emigrant
train, pushing the Indian and the buffalo aside, and so on to the view today
from the dome car of a Zephyr.
For all the men, women and children who are still boys at heart there are
plenty of engineers and trains in these pages. Yet, in the aggregate the book
goes far beyond the rails and the roundhouses into the wide expanses for which
the railroad has proved itself the most needed and the most influential, as it
is still the most important means of transportation. It goes into homes, the
fields and the cities to show what that transportation has meant to the granger
and his family in terms of work, prosperity and happiness.
The nucleus of the more than 425 pictures has been selected from the archives
of the Burlington Railroad to 1901, deposited in the Newberry Library in
Chicago. All other pictures are acknowledged as coming from various state
archives, other publications or, especially in the case of the modern
photographs, from individual photographers.
The editors are colleagues at the Newberry Library, where Stanley Pargellis is
Librarian and Lloyd Lewis is Editor of the Newberry Bulletin. Mr. Lewis,
formerly associate editor of the Chicago Daily News, is also active in building
up the library's manuscript collection on the Middle West.
This is a pretty good description of the book. Keep in mind that there are far
more pictures her of society, and life of people than there are of trains. The
pictures shown of the Q are really great ranging from numerous hand sketches
from Harpers Weekly in the middle 1850's right up to inside views of the
Havelock shops, Chicago Union Station or a Waycar. The book illustrates people
living with or impacted by the railroad and in this case our beloved "Q".
Shifting to the book Burlington West
I received this book courtesy of D. Rale Reeves.
This is a book that covers the same period of time but from a history record of
the railroad rather than the people and society that the railroad impacted. It
is like the other Overton books a very well written historical account of the
railroad itself. The timeline of this book is from the origins of Railroads and
population in the 1830's right up through the year 1940.
It covers such topics as:
Origins of the Burlington System
Southern Iowa plans it's railroad
Congress and the land grant
Consolidation and construction of the railroad
The boom years
The not so boom years.
I hope this long diatribe will help you get a feel of what these two specific
books are about.
Again, if anybody has other questions, let me know.
Tom Koch
Paint and Decal Shop Coordinator
Burlington Route Historical Society
www.burlingtonroute.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Rupert and Maureen [mailto:gamlenz@i...]
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 1:53 PM
To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Vintage books about the "Q"
Tom
Can you give the rest of us a brief resume of the "Colonization History of
the Burlington Railroad"? Does it match Jonathan's suspicions?
Rupert
----- Original Message -----
From: TOM KOCH <tom.koch@a...>
To: <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 5:15 AM
Subject: RE: [BRHSlist] Vintage books about the "Q"
> Steve,
>
> I have both books and can tell you anything you want to know about them.
Feel free to contact me off-list if you want.
>
> Tom Koch
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