Authors: Michael E. Zega and John E. Gruber
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Format: Hardback
Pages: 122
Between 1870 and 1950, 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 this visual medium from their founding, first in the form of broadsides, dominated by text and intended to convey practical information, and then, during the 1890s, as vivid lithographed display posters. For the next 50 years, American railroads commissioned posters designed to spur the popular imagination and thereby encourage travel.
Travel by Train focuses on the artists, railroad men, and advertising agencies that created and produced the work. It presents the posters in the context of the historical trends and competitive strategies that shaped the development of the railroad industry. The book also follows the development of the advertising business and graphic design in the U.S. and Europe. It features approximately 160 poster images (many in color), personal photographs, and sketches, many of them never before published.