Erie Railway Tourist, 18541886: Transporting Visual Culture [Hardcover]

Erie Railway Tourist, 18501886: Transporting Visual Culture is a valuable contribution to the fields of visual culture studies and American history, offering new perspectives on the intersections of art and commerce. Addressing the many ways in which the Erie Railways advertisements popularized the artistic movement of landscape painting, this book highlights the role of the railways art in marketing suburban development and tourism in nineteenth-century America. Written in a clear and readable style, it is enriched with many illustrations that strengthen Gottfrieds arguments. Railway buffs will also find the book informative and enjoyable.This book explores the Erie Railway's contributions to nineteenth-century visual culture by promoting scenic thinking in which closely viewed scenes and deep prospects became the basis for engaging landscapes and their representations. Erie guides became commentary on landscape, with images and texts as annotations on the production of culture.This book explores how the Erie Railway, in developing a series of sophisticated travel guides, made significant contributions to nineteenth-century visual culture and shaped the social life of Americans. The Erie Railway emerged during a time in which a societal response to the production of landscape paintings and prints led to a concurrent development of tourism. The era promoted a visual culture that encouraged scenic thinking in which closely viewed scenes and deep prospects became the basis for engaging physical landscapes and their representations. Revealing how visual culture apprehends aspects of reality that texts only partially grasp, the Erie guides became an important part of the commentary on the role of landscape in nineteenth-century American life. Their images and texts are worth our attention as annotations on the production of culture.List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionOneHistory of the Erie RailwayTwoThe Historical Basis of Erie Railway Guide ImageryThreelC¶