Railroads in Fortune Magazine

Fortune magazine was launched into the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of America’s business elite in 1930 at a time when steam powered railroads were the nation’s prime movers of raw materials and manufactured goods. Many businesses were highly dependent on the services of the railroad and managerial executives took a close interest in rail pricing and performance. Fortune specialised in long-form journalism, and regular in-depth analysis of the railroad business kept the executive class well informed. In their turn the railroads advertised their services to business leaders while the manufacturers of locomotives, rolling stock and railway equipment advertised to the railroads.

Railroads made their first appearance on the cover of the second issue of Fortune in March 1930 - beneath a signal gantry a track worker shields his eyes from the slanting sunlight while far below we see an idealised harbour scene, part San Pedro, part Amalfi Coast. An example of what might be called “industrial pastoral” where benevolent business dwells in harmony with the natural world, the sort of relationship Fortune commended to its readers. In February 1931 the cover took the form of an aerial illustration of a marshalling yard showing diagonal lines of freight cars under the guidance of a pair of muscular locomotives, each dispatching powerful plumes of smoke and steam into the atmosphere - a stylish celebration of steam power in which railroad grime is transformed via a palette of vibrant complementaries. A lively use of line and flat areas of dynamic colour (blue-green, orange-red and maroon) greatly enhance what might otherwise have been a banal composition. Neal Bose, the artist has left no more than a minimal trace of his existence - a biography that starts and finishes with: born 1894, Columbia TN, lived Chicago area. For the first decade there was a Fortune tradition of covers unrelated to the contents. Covers were treated in the same way that producers of luxury goods would employ the finest of packaging to add another layer of exclusivity.

Fortune cover artists enjoyed remarkable autonomy - some were submitted on-spec while others were the result of one word commissions. Full advantage was taken of this freedom and artists successfully offered up imagery that in subject and treatment, aligned with their personal interests. This culture of tolerance was all part of Fortune’s mission to raise the sights of business leaders to aspire to a higher sense of purpose. A change of policy in the 1940s led to more directed assignments and covers that reflected a major story inside the magazine. Representation and stylisation were succeeded by a cautious embrace of Cubist-inspired semi-abstraction, Modernism, montage and, finally, photography. Several of these cover artists were associated with Precisionism - Francis Criss and Edmund Lewandowski drew on their repertoire of crisply rendered geo-mechanical forms. Lewandowski (August 1945, March 1948) pushed his compositions towards abstraction with a judicious selection of re-ordered simplified details. Criss (November 1942) found visual drama in the intersecting vectors of transmission lines and electric catenary - at ground level a maintenance crew bustle around a fleet of streamlined coaches, every aspect equally favoured by the artist’s dispassionate attention.

For May 1936 John A Cook produced an image of a sequence of passenger trains entering and departing from a busy station observed from an elevated viewpoint. John O’Hara Cosgrave II’s boxcar image for May 1939 shared the Precisionist sensibility and would be revived 35 years later in a modified form as an album sleeve for J J Cale’s Okie issued in 1974. Modernist graphic designer, Lester Beall was responsible for the montage on the cover of the March 1947 issue, announcing an account of Britain’s newly nationalised railways. A subject of crucial importance to an American audience as evidence of the creeping tide of socialism that sent shivers down the collective spine. Finally, from August 1958 is a grid of railroad company emblems, locked together in a black mesh and separated by wedges of vibrant primaries and secondaries. This is the work of Bauhaus graduate Walter Allner, master of hard-edged graphic simplification, who served as Fortune’s Art Director from 1963 to 1974. In all, Allner designed 79 Fortune covers, beginning in September 1951.

Much more about Fortune is readily available at the Visual Telling of Stories and an extended visit is highly recommended. It conforms to nobody’s template and prioritises information over style. Curiosity will be rewarded with a wealth of unexpected visual treasures, under the guidance of unshowy fonts and the gravity-defying inverted pyramid of thumbnails.

Postcard of the Day No. 92 – Interior of Elevated Car, Philadelphia

An air of deepest gloom and melancholy hangs over this sombre group of passengers. Mostly seated and facing the viewer, they appear resigned to their fate – trapped on the infamous Long Black Train, bound for extinction. The dark mood is intensified by the way the passengers huddle in the back of what could easily be taken for convict transport. It makes a stark contrast with Coffee & Cigars and Afternoon Tea in the Salon-de-Luxe. In the former we see a trio of captains of industry browsing the news while in the latter, three ladies of leisure sip tea in plush upholstered surroundings. Both groups have the air of late Victorian narrative painting and scrupulously avoid making eye contact. Prosperity and privilege in locomotion.

Santa Fe Railroad Advertising

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (routinely shortened to Santa Fe) was one of the three major railroads operating trans-continental passenger routes across the USA. The others were Union Pacific (Road of the Streamliners) and the Burlington Route (Vista-Domes and Zephyrs). The Santa Fe comfortably outperformed its competitors in terms of publicity – consistently more imaginative and eye-catching. Santa Fe played up its connection with the Native American traditions over whose lands its tracks passed. And when it came to named trains Santa Fe had by far the most extensive portfolio – including the Super Chief, El Capitan, California Ltd, the Grand Canyon, and San Francisco Chief. While the competition offered Domeliners, Astra Domes and Vista-Domes, Santa Fe tempted travellers with the louche delights of Pleasure Domes. The on-board catering was supplied by the Famous Fred Harvey and ranged from “beefsteak or brook trout to pheasant à la Périgueux”. From 1937 Santa Fe painted its fleet of streamline diesel locomotives in what became known as Warbonnet livery, as seen above. A Native American Circle and Cross motif was displayed on the loco front together with the name of the railroad on a bright yellow ground, itself surrounded by a bright red wrap that extended on to the loco sides in the form of a bonnet. A designer at General Motors (Leland A Knickerbocker) came up with the concept and it was eagerly adopted to great effect by Santa Fe. Competing railroads had trains that were every bit as visually spectacular as Santa Fe’s but their stodgy advertising and publicity was no match for Santa Fe’s bold and colourful offerings. An earlier post featuring Santa Fe advertising can be seen here.

American Railroad Journey Planners

A selection of schedules from American railroads, mostly from the 1940s. Some are from minor operations, others from the giants of railroading such as Pennsylvania Railroad, Santa Fe and the New York Central. They all offer the opportunity to plan the trip of your choice and visit many out of the way destinations in the privacy of your own imagination. If you have the inclination unreasonable amounts of time are easily wasted, immersed in masses of obsolete data. Once the war was over, the great American passenger railroads were in decline as the volume of private cars on the roads rapidly expanded. The love affair with the open road went from strength to strength as the network of Interstate Highways reached deeper into the heart of the nation. Switching from war to peace-time construction enabled the aviation industry to scoop up the majority of long distance travel and the downfall of the passenger railroads was complete in 1971 when Amtrak took over the last viable remnants of a once dominant network of routes.