Donald Duke Collection of Railroad and Electric Railway Photographs and Ephemera: Finding Aid
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http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8hx1jt7 No online items Donald Duke Collection of Railroad and Electric Railway Photographs and Ephemera: Finding Aid Finding aid prepared by Suzanne Oatey. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Photo Archives 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2129 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © 2017 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. 645950 1 Overview of the Collection Title: Donald Duke Collection of Railroad and Electric Railway Photographs and Ephemera Dates (inclusive): 1829-2010 Bulk dates: 1920s–1960s Collection Number: 645950 Creator: Duke, Donald, 1929-2010. Extent: 11,000 photographs in 43 boxes + 46 boxes of printed material and ephemera Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Photo Archives 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2129 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection consists of railroad and electric railway photographs, ephemera and publications, 1829-2010, with the bulk of material from the early- to mid-20th century. The materials are chiefly focused on steam and diesel locomotives, major railroads, and interurban passenger railways of the United States and Canada. Also represented are shortline and narrow-gauge railroads, other foreign railroads, streetcars and urban light rail transit. Language: English. Access Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services. Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher. Preferred Citation [Identification of item]. Donald Duke Collection of Railroad and Electric Railway Photographs and Ephemera, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Provenance Gift of the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation, September 1, 2008. Biographical Note Donald Duke (1929-2010) was a publisher, writer, railroad photographer and collector. He was born in Los Angeles and, from the age of 10, lived in San Marino, California. He grew up riding the Pacific Electric Railway, which stopped two blocks from his home, embarking on a love for trains and train photography, which he shared with his father. After graduating from Colorado College, he worked in sales for Mobil Oil, and later as an agent for General Steamship Corporation. In the 1950s, Duke formed his own publishing company, Pacific Railroad Publications; it later became Golden West Books, incorporated in 1960. Duke published over a hundred books on trains and railroads, written by himself or other railroad historians. Many of the photographs and pieces of ephemera in this collection appeared in Golden West Books publications. Duke also wrote articles for and edited the Pacific Railway Journal and the Branding Iron quarterly for the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners. He was a member of the Lexington Group of railroad historians, founding member of Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California, and active in several other train, rail and locomotive historical societies. He was a longtime reader at the Huntington Library, where he bequeathed his collection of over 2,000 railroad books and trade journals. Bibliography Biographical files on Donald Duke in the Donald Duke Collection, Box 42, folders 9-11. Edson, William D., Railroad Names: A Directory of Common Carrier Railroads Operating in the United States, 1826-1992 (Potomac, Md.: Edson, 1993) Jane’s World Railways and Rapid Transit Systems 1980-1981 (New York: Jane’s Publishing Inc., 1980) Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, https://www.metro.net/about/metrolibrary/ Scope and Content 645950 2 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 publisher’s 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. The negatives are chiefly of locomotives of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (“The Santa Fe”), Southern Pacific Railroad, and Union Pacific Railroad, made approximately 1940s-1950s. There are also many views of streetcars of Los Angeles-area lines: Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, Los Angeles Railway, Los Angeles Transit Lines, and the Pacific Electric Railway. There are a few negatives of other railroads, as well as stations, roundhouses, railyards, and copy negatives of miscellaneous train wrecks. The negatives were made by Donald Duke and others (often uncredited), with a small portion of copy negatives. • Leslie O. Merrill Collection of Streamliner Trains and Railroad Ephemera • Los Angeles Railway Corporation Collection of Photographs, 1853-1939 (photCL 58) • Pacific Electric Railway Company Photographs, 1870s-1950s, (bulk 1910s-1940s) (photCL 91) • William Riley McKeen Jr. Papers, 1871-1928 (bulk 1895-1915) (mssMcKeen) Arrangement The collection has primarily been kept in the collector’s original arrangement, and is organized in the following three series: Series 1. Printed material and ephemera (Boxes 1-46) A. Railroads, United States and Canada (Boxes 1-27) B. Electric railways (interurban, streetcars and light rail), United States and Canada (Boxes 27-32) C. Foreign railroads (Boxes 32-36) D. Subject files (Boxes 36-43) E. Oversize materials (Boxes 44-46) Series 2. Photographic prints (Boxes 47-82) A. Railroads, United States and Canada (Boxes 47-70) B. Electric railways (interurban, streetcars and light rail), United States and Canada (Boxes 71-81) C. Foreign railroads (Box 82) 645950 3 Series 3. Negatives (Boxes 83-89) A. Railroads, United States (Boxes 83-88) B. Electric railways, Los Angeles and vicinity (Box 89) C. Miscellaneous (Box 89) Indexing: Added Entries Huntington, Collis Potter, 1821-1900. • Author (unsigned) of 1886 Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad memo, Box 17, folder 12. • Autograph signature on 1891 Southern Pacific Railroad pass for W. G. Cohen, Box 20, folder 34. Huntington, Henry Edwards, 1850-1927. • Addressee on 1891 Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad memo, Box 17, folder 12. • Author (unsigned) of 1888 Maysville and Big Sandy Railroad memo, Box 15, folder 4. Indexing Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Huntington Library's Online Catalog. Subjects Kimball, Ward. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway