Women and their Role on the Rails
Historians have long portrayed railroads as sites of manly power. And so it is surprising that Godey’s also acknowledged women’s role in this accomplishment: “The great works of modern civilization, the Pacific Railway, for example, are chiefly made in the interest of those humane and peaceful employments in which the feminine element is so prominent; for the advancement of trade, the intercourse of friends, the binding together of the nation.”
This talk will recast the spaces and experiences of nineteenth-century rail travel through the lens of “the feminine element” and question the ways in which the Transcontinental Railroad bound the nation together.