Leafing through a copy of the Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine (published 1876-1907) at a used bookstore, I was struck by the high quality of the writing. I didn’t buy the magazine, but there are copies online and I recently downloaded the collection from 1884 and have been reading through some of the contents.
A locomotive fireman is quite different from a regular fireman–he doesn’t put out fires, rather, he starts them and keeps them going. These are the guys who shoveled the coal into the boiler furnaces, working on a swaying platform in a cab that was definitely not climate-controlled. The job required more brainwork than one might think but still, this was not one of the more intellectual jobs on the railroad. I doubt if there were many if any college graduates among the readership of this magazine, I’d guess that no more than half had gone all the way through high school.
So what kind of reading material was designed for them?
There are a lot of short stories, some of them centered around railroading but many on other topics entirely. Ichabod Turner’s Mission is about a mentally-disturbed man who believes it is his mission to save the world..his life will intersect with that of a young railwayman who has been assigned to run a train–although he knows that he has had inadequate rest.
All in a Fashion is about a girl who marries “an enterprising young man” and later visits her hometown wearing a a very fashionable hat…which everyone wants to borrow and some try to imitate…eventually, she is accused of being the one doing the copying.
His Mistake is a gripping story about a train dispatcher, Bob Norcross, and his telegrapher, Miss Louise Dale. Attempting to keep traffic moving following various mishaps, Norcross writes an order to change the usual meeting place of two trains running in opposite directions. He has finished writing the order but not yet signed it when he hears a whistle and, picking up what he thinks is the order he has just written…but is actually another loose message slip lying nearby… and walks out onto the platform.
Miss Dale turns from her instrument and picks up the message, noticing that it has not been not signed but remembering that the dispatcher had twice spoken about changing the meeting point of the trains. “Bob is hurried and driven tonight,” she thought, “he forgot to sign it.” And then she remembered that the mail must be close up to Scotville..the intended new meeting point..already and that no time ought to be lost. She looks for Bob, but doesn’t see him–he is speaking with the superintendent, in the baggage room. What should she do? What does she do?
There are philosophical thoughts and historical notes on various subjects. Consistency is a meditation on the concept of equality…which the author sees as being violated by two privileged classes of people: lawyers and liquor sellers. Stands Alone, reprinted from the London Times, says about this country: “The history of the world has furnished no precedent for the condition of the United States…With the conscious power to carve its own destinies belonging to perfect national independence, it combines the Roman peace enjoyed privately and commercially by subject provinces of the ancient Roman empire. No country in the world has any interest in molesting it…Their happy fortune has left it for the time with no more difficult problem to settle than how to avoid accumulating so enormous reserve of public wealth as not to know what to do with its taxes.” (Well, we’ve solved that problem) There’s a transcript of a fiery speech given by Patrick Henry in response to British threats toward signers of the Declaration of Independence.
There are many stories about then-current events and projects, including the prospects for what became the Suez Canal…the potential for solar power, involving what we would now call the solar-thermal method…the potential for what became Trans-Siberian Railway…and progress on automatic couplers for railcars, the lack of which was responsible for a large number of deaths and serious injuries every year. There are a lot of pieces on scientific subjects, including the chemistry of life, such as photosynthesis. There’s a suggestion that ship collisions with icebergs could be prevented with a very sensitive thermometer that would sound an alarm if the temperature suddenly dropped (would this work?) and an article on ballooning which argues that it is pretty pointless.
There are a couple of articles about Kate Shelley, who, aged 15, had three years earlier saved a train from destruction by an incredible act of heroism. Her Iowa home overlooked the railroad tracks and a bridge over Honey Creek, and during a terrible storm, she observed that the bridge had gone down. She knew that the Omaha express was due from the west in a short time. The only way to save the train was to get a message to the station at which the express would stop briefly and to do this, she had to make her way across the high trestle bridge over the Des Moines river. The walkways on the bridge had been removed to discourage pedestrians, and the only way she could get across was by crawling from tie to tie, making her way by feel and by lightning flashes. (True story–more here)
i grew up a few miles from where Kate Shelley’s heroics took place. Her story is a prominent one in the history of central Iowa.
Here’s link to the Wikipedia entry. Of interest to train buffs may be the fact that the old bridge that spans the Des Moines River was left in place for historical purposes even though a more modern and safe bridge was built in roughly 2008 – 2009:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Shelley_High_Bridge
ALSO for train buffs: check out the Boone and Scenic Valley Railway and Museum:
https://bsvrr.com/rides-offered/fraser-trains-classic-excursion/
I would suggest that the level of learning acquired by some unexpected groups is related to the available entertainment of the time. There was no radio, TV, talk shows radio or tv or internet, no internet, and a lot of time that needed filling. Autodidacts learn because they are interested. The modern educational systems do not seem interested in encouraging competition to their offerings, private or self-taught. Shake it all out, and there are too many hand-held devices to entertain, too many podcasts and radio/TV sources to watch or listen to, to the point that taking time to read and learn on ones own is an unlikely occurrence. I am no longer working, but have too many interests and things to do to even think about being boredm but I am not at the level of learning Greek, even to read the originals, nor more Latin, to read the Romans.. I have had access to my father’s entertainment – American Youth and Boys Life – with their serialized stories and years of someone’s library of Popular Mechanics from the 1930’s – build a locomotive in your back yard! … to learn a lot on my own, sans organized teaching. OTOH, I was bored in grade school such that I did the homework while everyone was ‘taking out your workbooks’. Such is life.
Before he started writing Detective fiction Frank Packard wrote railroad stories. They were collected in two books: On the Iron at Big Cloud and the Night Operator.
They are excellent stories and both are available at Gutenberg.org. There are also
audio versions at Librevox. Check them out.
tommy w…a lot of it is surely the lack of other entertainment options compared with what we have available now (although direct personal conversation was probably more common there than it is today, and music playing & listening were certainly more common)…but I also suspect that people on average are not learning to read as facilely as they did in the past.
Love this! And for many reasons. Among them: my great grandfather, son of famine immigrants, worked his way west, from upstate New York to Wyoming and then Oakland, California, beginning as a fireman on the railroads. Eventually he became a machinist/engineer, on his own home, kept a servant, had a zillion kids. I love, too, the intellectual tone of the publication as well as the range and interest and philosophical sophistication of the stories and articles. Thanks for sharing!
Great to see you here, Erin!
Erin’s substack, The Story Rules Project, is well worth reading.
https://storyrulesproject.substack.com/
There’s a lot more to the fireman’s job than just shoveling coal into the firebox, though even with the shoveling there’s more to it than you’d expect. Put the coal in the wrong place or too much or too little and the power goes down. Fail to anticipate a grade and lose time as the power fails near the top.
It’s the fireman that operates the engine, the engineer has his hands full with the throttle, brakes and watching the track ahead. The fireman keeps the right water level in the boiler, let the level fall below the roof of the firebox and the boiler explodes in seconds. There’s a rather elaborate procedure to making sure the sight glasses are indicating the true level. He also monitors all the rest of the things like the air compressor for the brakes, etc. Not to mention keeping an eye out on his side for what the engineer can’t see.
One of those jobs that looks simple only if you don’t know anything about how to do it.
Those magazines and every other piece of printed matter, not excluding advertising broad sheets, religious tracts, weeks and month old newspapers, would have been passed from hand to hand in the West where literature was scarce and winter nights were long. I’m sure the stories were treasured by all the non railroaders that read them while they read the business announcements and ads just as avidly.
Promotion from fireman to engineer seems to have been pretty common.
According to Grok, the salary ranges in the 1880s were:
Fireman: $35-60/month (six-day workweek)
Engineer: $75-$120/month
Conductor: $75-135/month
A common wage for a cowhand was a dollar a day and found (food and a bunk).