The "Lightning Express" Trains: "Leaving the Junction"

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama nineteenth-century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel recruited his younger brother Charles into the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.

Although it was unusual for a woman to achieve prominence in a printing firm, Frances Flora (Fanny) Palmer filled an important role for the Currier and Ives firm, as she created the firm's best landscapes and most engaging scenes of daily life. Born in England, where she became an accomplished artist and printmaker, Palmer came to New York City in 1844. Shortly thereafter, she and her husband Seymour opened a small printshop in lower Manhattan. After their business closed in 1849. Nathaniel Currier commissioned print designs from Palmer; after 1857, she became a staff artist for Currier & Ives.

Starting in 1853, Nathaniel Currier (and later Currier & Ives) published thirty prints featuring trains for those Americans wanting pictures of the then-modern mode of transportation. Fanny Palmer created the firm's most dramatic railroad scenes, including this captivating moonlit view of two trains, each with a smokestack spewing dark smoke and fiery sparks. Here, the two trains approach the foreground on slightly curved parallel tracks as they chug away from the small railroad station shown at the far right. The circular headlamps on each engine shine brightly, as does the full moon in the sky. On front of the central locomotive, the shield-like seal of the United States, indicates the train's deployment for the Union's military needs during the Civil War. By 1863, when this lithograph was made, railway lines were instrumental in moving troops and supplies to the front.