The Railroad Photographs of Alfred A. Hart, Artist

Alfred A. Hart documented the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad during the years 1864-1869. Although the book contains a great deal about railroading, the book focuses on the events and circumstances of railroading that are often over-looked or only briefly discussed. Among these are the vicissitudes of tunneling--with both nitroglycerin and black-powder techniques--in the brutally dense granite of the rugged California mountains, the question of how the workers were able to keep tunnels on a perfectly straight course while working from both sides of a mountain. Moreover, the book is an excellent primer on the general practices and problems attendant to wet-plate photography. Especially interesting is Mead's discourse on the ins-and-outs of commercial stereography in the American West during the 1860s. Mead has successfully collected nearly every known photograph ever taken by Hart of the Central Pacific Railroad. Moreover, he has made a special point to visit most of the si