1911 Across the Continent
DESCRIPTION
Through imagistic, laudatory prose, sepia-toned photographs, and hand-drawn illustrations, this laudatory book inaugurates the extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway into the booming Pacific Northwest. Starting at its eastern terminus of Chicago and finishing at Mt. Rainier, the 66-page book captures every step of the journey in detail. Its romantic descriptions, picturesque depictions, and periodic historical interjections—often on the Lewis & Clark expedition—paint this final leg of westward expansion as a euphoric culmination rather than some tragic death of the frontier.
Though its content is consistently inventive and artful, the book's form follows a simple repetitive structure: start at one stop and follow the railway to the next while characterizing the people, structures, and natural landscape passed along that route. While their delivery may be formulaic, these descriptions are anything but cursory. Its author, Isabelle Carpenter Kendall, dives into the distinct history and characteristics that differentiate towns from one another, transmits hyper-regional histories, and intricately highlights the unique make-up of each natural feature.
The book's centerpiece is a two-page map of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway and its connections titled "Across the Continent" that shows from a perspective of lofty abstraction what the rest of the book captures from a down-to-earth, individual perspective.
Included here also is an announcement leaflet for the book that gives a short history of the railway's development and further paints the achievement in elevated, almost millenarian tones.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622