In one story…I’m not sure whether it was fiction or a narrative of an actual event…a passenger describes how during the Civil War he was aboard a locomotive racing to carry an urgent message to Union forces….but they were being pursued by a slightly faster Confederate locomotive, and failure of their mission seemed certain. But someone hit on the idea of spilling the cans of tallow oil, carried aboard for lubricating purposes, onto the rails, thereby causing the Confederate machine to lose all traction. (I was curious as to whether an AI system, after being told about the Union crew’s situation, would have hit on this solution or not, and will link my conversation with Grok in a separate post)
A Woman’s Department was added to the magazine midway through the year. There is an article about Chautauqua, which was sort of like a late-19th-century version of TED talks…modern description here. There are also recipes and an appreciation of the way in which gas and gasoline stoves have contributed to the easing of kitchen work. Also there are discussions of new career opportunities emerging for women.
The magazine was published by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, a fraternal organization and trade union. The attitude projected toward railway management was not as negative as one might expect in a trade union publication, there were even positive comments about the general managers of some roads. There was also, though, a rather eloquent article arguing for the labor theory of value…although the article’s definition of ‘labor’ was extended to include inventors as well as workers per se.
There is quite a bit of poetry, and some humor, most of which isn’t all that funny by our present standards.
Overall, a very interesting exercise in time travel. I was inspired to read through the magazine and write this post by a remark at X: “I really don’t think people quite grasp just how much more well read highly educated people used to be in the past.” My reply (which got 1200 ‘likes’) was:
“Not just highly educated people…I have a copy of the locomotive firemen’s magazine from 1885. Probably none of these guys were college graduates, and I’d bet at least half didn’t go all the way through high school. But the literary level of the magazine is above what you could sell to a general audience today.”
In comments, Owl at the Library said:
“Welsh miners formed study groups to read Austen and Dickens. Scottish shepherds built lending libraries. Watchmakers & cabinetmakers taught themselves Greek and Latin. The loss of working-class autodidact culture is one of history’s great tragedies.”
…which reminded me of Jonathan Rose’s book ‘The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes’…very interesting, though quite long IIRC. Some other book suggestions and many interesting comments at the thread.
The issues for 1884 can be read and downloaded here, there are also other years online.
Previous Retro-Reading post here.
Your thoughts?