Travel by train

by Michael E. Zega

"America's railroads produced a body of poster work significant both for the artists involved and for the range of images created. The railroads used the poster medium from their founding. Early posters took the form of broadsides dominated by text and intended to convey practical information. Then, during the 1890s, as the European lithographed display poster began to influence American advertisers and artists, this vivid new medium was adopted. For the next fifty years American railroads produced posters designed to spur the popular imagination and thereby induce travel. Artists such as Adolph Treidler, Maurice Logan, Sascha Maurer, and Leslie Ragan designed images of intensity, depicting exotic destinations, dramatic architecture, featured trains, and travel comfort.". "Although a great deal has been written about European railway and travel posters, their American counterparts have remained obscure. Travel by Train focuses on the artists, railroad men, and advertising agencies that