Rare Books
Motor car directory : an illustrated directory of the specifications of all domestic and foreign motor-cars and motor business wagons- gasoline, steam and electric- sold in this country
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McKeen Motor Car Company – "Instruction Book No. 1, McKeen Gasoline Motor Car."
Manuscripts
This collection contains the personal and professional papers of American railroad mechanical engineer and innovator William Riley McKeen Jr. (1869-1946) who developed some of the first gasoline-powered railroad motor cars, beginning in 1905 for the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1908, he became president of the McKeen Motor Car Company, which built over 150 of the pioneering motor cars through 1917. The materials are primarily focused on the McKeen motor cars and the history of their promotion and production, 1905-1917. Materials include promotional booklets and ephemera, news clippings, scrapbooks, operating manuals, McKeen's personal notebooks and over 300 photographs. Series 1 begins with McKeen's youth and schooling, with examples of some of his engineering notes and workbooks. There are also notes on designing his house, a genealogy of the McKeen family, and his father's estate settlement papers, which include correspondence between McKeen and his siblings. McKeen's professional work and concerns are reflected in several notebooks he kept during his career, with detailed notes related to employees, design issues and other work in the railroad mechanical shops. There are only a few letters of business correspondence, and just one copy of a letter from E. H. Harriman (no original). Among the personal papers is a file of documents related to a 1912 lawsuit brought against McKeen and his second wife, Mary, by Mary's former husband, Charles Hull, in Omaha, Nebraska. This file contains documents that would be of interest to medical and social history researchers: a detective's transcript of observations of prostitutes and activities at brothels (collected to disparage Mr. Hull). Series 2 contains McKeen motor car materials, primarily promotional brochures and ephemera (including a package of custom cigarettes), operating manuals, production statistics, news clippings and articles. See also Series 3 and 4 for clippings and photographs of McKeen motor cars. Series 3 contains three scrapbooks: A) a personal ledger, with clippings; B) a scrapbook of over 100 clippings about the McKeen Motor Car Company, 1907 -- 1920; and C) a scrapbook of photographs and clippings about McKeen motor cars in Australia, 1911-1912. Series 4 contains photographs, including a set of Union Pacific company photographs of McKeen motor cars over the years 1905-1911. McKeen appears in some photographs, and there are some views of employees, Omaha shop buildings, engines and production views. Other photographs show McKeen motor cars on various railroads, some wrecks, engine parts, and views of the McKeen Highway Coach, a passenger vehicle introduced in 1915.
mssMcKeen
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Southern Pacific Railroad Company. [Blueprint drawings and specifications for lettering and numbering of gasoline motor cars and trailers (Sacramento, Ca., Dec. 17, 1908; rev. 1913)]
Rare Books
Profiles and end views appear to be different models of McKeen motor cars, shown with lettering for Southern Pacific. / Standard Roman fonts of different sizes.
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Europe - Cross-country trains. Wagons-lit (Sleeping cars)
Rare Books
This collection consists of railroad photographs, ephemera and publications, 1829-2010, with the bulk of material from the early- to mid-20th century. The focus is chiefly locomotives and trains (steam and diesel) of major railroads and interurban electric railways of the United States and Canada. Also represented in the collection are smaller shortline and narrow-gauge railroads; other foreign railroads; streetcars (or trolleys); and burgeoning light rail and subway systems. Most of the ephemera is printed material produced by railroad companies for promotional and business purposes, such as annual reports, brochures, route maps and guides, timetables, tickets, dining menus, stationery, stock certificates, bond coupons and other items. There are also many city and state tourist guidebooks describing sights along rail routes or promoting land available for farming, mining or home-building across the United States. Also included are items produced for or by railroad employees, such as instruction and safety manuals, train orders, freight bills and in-house newsletters. Railroad industry publications, statistics and reports can be found in the American Association of Railroads files, which are part of Donald Duke's subject files on railroad-related topics. Throughout the ephemera files are newspaper and journal clippings, often from scarce small press and trade publications such as The Railway and Engineering Review, The Railroad Gazette, The Santa Fe Magazine, The Western Railroader, Railway Age and others. In addition to railroad history, other topics of social and cultural historical interest in the ephemera are: Depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in mass-marketed train travel brochures. There are many examples that reflect American cultural and class stereotypes in the early- to mid-20th century. Selected files are noted in the container list. Occupational safety and health: See railroad worker safety manuals and accident prevention literature in ephemera files. History of food and drink: See numerous dining and beverage menus throughout Railroads and Foreign Railroads ephemera files (not always noted in container list). History of graphic design and typography: See examples of early- and mid- 20th century popular styles in printed ephemera throughout collection. Photographs and negatives: The photographs depict locomotives, freight and passenger trains, logging railroads, electric interurbans and streetcars across the United States. This was primarily a publishers file of ready-for-press photographs, which are almost all 8 x 10-inch black-and-white prints, made approximately 1950s-1980s. The photographs were made chiefly by various amateur train photographers, including Donald Duke, but most are uncredited. There are some copy prints (photographs of other photographs), and a few original photographs from the late 19th-early 20th century. Some photographs have locations and dates written on the back, but many are unidentified other than the name of the railroad. There are a few files on Ward Kimball (1914-2002), one of the original animators for Walt Disney Studios and an avid rail enthusiast. There are some photographs, biographical materials, and a file on his personal backyard narrow-gauge steam railroad, Grizzly Flats Railroad, in San Gabriel, California.
645950
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Gazetteer and business directory of Ulster country, N.Y. for 1871-2
Rare Books
379101
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Union Pacific Railroad Company. Copy of blueprint for "Four wheel Gasoline Motor Car No. 1" ("McKeen motor car" designed by Union Pacific's Superintendent of Motive Power, William Riley McKeen Jr.)
Rare Books
This collection of railroad ephemera, photographs, prints and posters concerns only streamliner trains--the wind-resistant, "streamlined" designs first appearing on major U.S. railroads in 1934 and peaking in the glamour years of the American streamliner, late 1930s to 1955. The sleek, fast trains were promoted for their speed, luxury and comfort compared to older, heavyweight steam locomotives. The bulk of the collection is composed of passenger brochures, with especially extensive files on Union Pacific; Southern Pacific; New York Central; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ("the Burlington"); and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe ("the Santa Fe") railroads. There are also many materials on Amtrak (formed in 1971), and foreign railroads, particularly in Canada, Europe and Japan. Besides brochures, other printed materials include: manufacturer's pamphlets, employee newsletters, press releases, blueprints of railcars, copies of U.S. Patent Office design applications, menus, lounge car stationery, baggage stickers and other items. The photographs are mostly railroad-issued 8 x 10-inch prints showing train exteriors and richly designed dining cars, lounge cars, sleeping cabins and domed observation cars. There are also many high-quality small-format photographs made by Leslie Merrill and other amateur photographers, 1938 to 1960s. The prints and posters mostly consist of promotions for U.S. railroads, with several notable pre-World War II posters for European railroads. An important section of the collection covers early streamlining experiments of the late-19th century: Samuel R. Calthrop's "air-resisting" train of 1865; Frederick U. Adams's "Windsplitter" of 1893; Joe V. Meigs' "Meigs Elevated Railway" monorail in 1880s Boston; and William Riley McKeen Jr.'s aerodynamic McKeen Motor Car of the 1900s. In addition to railroad history, other topics of social and cultural historical interest are: Depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in mass-marketed train travel brochures. There are many examples that reflect American cultural and class stereotypes in the early- to mid-20th century. History of food and drink: See numerous dining car and beverage menus (not always noted in container list). History of advertising, graphic design and typography represented in 20th-century railroad print advertising.
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