Thomas Cole, Genesee Scenery, 1847

Thomas Cole, Notch of the White Mountains, 1839

Thomas Cole, View From Mount Holyoke, after a Thunderstorm, 1836

Thomas Cole, View on the Catskill—Early Autumn, 1837

Thomas Cole, River in the Catskills, 1843

These ornamented grounds lie desolate; Those stately trees that waved o'er beauteous slopes, By fellers' hands now strewed in fragments lie; The trees that bent with fruits from Eden sprung Are plucked by passers' hands, and none rebuke; These halls are desolate from silence thrilling- That dwelling fair; its very cornerstone Which time had failed to loosen, Now must yield to the improvers power; The beauteous knoll is marred to fill yon hollow; And in the room of gentle solitude Wooing to thought and fastening our hearts By interlacing tendrils to the throne Of God, our portion, here shall sound the roar Of railroad train thundering adown the gorge, All level, straight, and stiff, and stereotyped, Where nature poured her beauty's store abundant.

From Dixon Ryan Fox, “Jefferson Hill” published originally in Catskill Messenger

Dixon Ryan Fox, “Jefferson Hill,” 1837

The hurry, noise, and restlessness of railroad travelling with the consequent violence done to all the natural requirements of the body are anything but conducive of health of body or serenity of mind. The body is made to be merely a sort of Tender to a locomotive car; its appetites and functions wait on a Machine which is merciless and tyrannical.

Thomas Cole, Jounal, 1847

Thomas Cole on the Railroad

George Inness, Lackawanna Valley, 1855

T. P. Rossiter, Opening in the Wilderness, c. 1850

Asher Durand, Progress, 1855

Frederic Church, Niagra, 1857

Currier and Ives, Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge, 1856

Niagara Falls Photograph c. 1850s

“Table Rock” [viewpoint for falls], Harper’s Weekly, Oct 2, 1858

Charles Wilson Knapp, Starrucca Viaduct, PA

Jasper Cropsey, Starrucca Viaduct, 1865

Currier and Ives, The Great West, 1870

Currier and Ives, Across the Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way, 1868

Currier and Ives, Lookout Mountain Tennessee and the Chatanooga Railroad, 1866

Currier and Ives, The Express Train, c. 1850s (earliest C & I train print)

Manchester Mills, c. 1830

Manchester Mills, c. 1820

Lowell, MA Mills, c. 1830s

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

• And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that cuntrie know them to be sharp and violent, and subjecte to cruell and feirce stormes, deangerous to travill to known places, much more to serch an unknown coast. Besids, what could they see but a hidious and desolate wildernes, full of wild beasts and willd men? and what multituds ther might be of them they knew not. Nether could they, as it were, goe up to the tope of Pisgah, to vew from this willdernes a more goodly cuntrie to feed their hops; for which way soever they turnd their eys (save upward to the heavens) they could have litle solace or content in respecte of any outward objects. `For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a wetherbeaten face; and the whole countrie, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage heiw.