BibliOdyssey: Locomotive Lithographs

Mid-1800s Locomotive Builders' Prints

from The Boston Athenæum*

Twenty Four Ton Passenger Engine,
'Gen. Stark',
delineated by Chas F Thomas
of Taunton Mass.

McKay & Aldus Iron Works, East Boston, Mass.

Manufacture Locomotive Engines & Tenders,

Marine Engines, Iron & Wooden Steam Ships,

Sugar Mills, Machinery &c. &c.

Wm. Mason & Co. Builders, Taunton, Mass.

Amoskeag Manufacturing Co.

Outside Passenger Engine,

Manchester, NH

Boston Locomotive Works 1854 Holmes Hinkley,

Agent, No. 380 Harrison Avenue, Boston, Mass.

Locomotive for Passengers with Outside Cylinders.

Built by the Lowell Machine Shop, 1852

Manchester Locomotive Works Manufacturers of

Locomotives, Stationary Steam Engines and Tools

Locomotive Engine for Passengers as built by

the Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell Mass. 1852

Portland Company's Passenger Engine, 1854. Portland, Maine

Lawrence Machine Shop,
Lawrence, Mass.
Passenger Engine

'Abbott Lawrence', 22 Tons

Portland Company's,

Passenger Locomotive,

'Minnehaha', 1856

John Sparrow Superintendent

Taunton Locomotive
Manf.g Co. Taunton Mass.

William A Crocker, Treas.

Willard W Fairbanks, Agent

Wm. Mason, Taunton, Mass. 'Highland Light'

"The locomotive industry emerged in mid-nineteenth-century America with the development and rapid expansion of the railroad network. As the number of locomotive manufacturers increased, the industry became intensely competitive, and builders vied with one another to capture the attention of railroad companies, officials, and agents. The first locomotive builders’ prints were created in the late 1830s and ‘40s in response to this industry competition. These lithographic portraits of locomotives were soon considered to be essential to the manufacturers’ promotion of their machines. Locomotive builders’ prints differed from ordinary advertising prints or landscape views with picturesque trains. Instead, they were a unique type of print, a hybrid designed both to attract potential customers and to provide accurate technical information about locomotive engines and cars. [..]

With the introduction of chromolithography in the 1840s and ‘50s, locomotive manufacturers began commissioning color prints of their engines. Early American locomotives were often painted and colorfully decorated; chromolithographic locomotive builders’ prints offer a rare insight into the decorative designs, finishes, and materials favored by manufacturers. The use of color in the 1850s ushered in what has been called the golden age of the locomotive builders’ prints. Larger in scale than the prints of the 1830s and early 1840s, they were composed of bold, opaque colors with glittering bronze and metallic powders. As locomotive manufacturers competed for the customer’s eye, lithographic artists began portraying locomotives in landscapes often with reference to the factories in which they were built. [..]

These lavish prints were much prized by locomotive manufacturers. [..] The November 8, 1856 issue of the Railroad Advocate stated that these prints were the “appropriate adornments for the offices of every variety of business connected with railroads; they are consulted by master mechanics and locomotive buyers; they are the master-pieces in the parlors of many engineers of good taste. . . .” The time and money invested in producing locomotive builders’ prints indicates that they were not typical advertising ephemera. In fact, they were clearly designed as framing prints to be hung in railroad offices and depots, hotels, saloons, and parlors where they might seduce not only prospective buyers but the general traveling public as well."
[Excerpts from a web article by Catharina Slautterback, Curator of Prints & Photographs, Boston Athenæum]