Railroad & Archival Research Symposium

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Railroad History & Archival Research SymposiumDecember 3, 2014

Presentations

Understanding Railroad Funnel Points in 19th Century America: A Civil War Case StudyWilliam G. Thomas, III, John and Catherine Angle Professor in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of History at the University of Nebraska
Railroad Labor History: New Directions for Global & Comparative Archival ResearchShelton Stromquist, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Iowa
Records by the Carload, Data by the Ton: The Scale & Scope of North American Railroad ResourcesJohn P. Hankey, Independent Consultant
Presenting the New & Improved Guides to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Records at the Newberry LibraryAlison Hinderliter, the Newberry Library
Archives & Museums Panelmoderated by Tom Mooney, Nebraska State Historical Society
Embracing the Crowd: What Happens When a Railroad Library Puts 22,000 Images on FlickrNicholas Fry, John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library
The Union Pacific Railroad Museum: What This 94 Year Old Corporate Museum Has to OfferPatricia LaBounty, Union Pacific Railroad Museum
The Pullman State Historic Site: House History, Music & Digital DirectionsAndrew Bullen, Illinois State Library

Speaker Biographies

Andrew Bullen is a librarian and computer programmer at the Illinois State Library. He specializes in database systems and digital image collections. He is a proud resident of the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago. He has been a volunteer at the Pullman State Historic Site for 10 years, creating their web presence, digital archives, and house history database system. His CV can be found at http://www.pullmanmorris.org/andrewBullen/.

Nicholas Fry has been the curator of the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library since 2012. He holds a B.A. in History and an M.A. in 19th Century US History from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and an M.L.I.S. from Drexel University. Before becoming curator of the Barriger Library, he worked at government records facilities including the NASA Center for Aerospace Information. He has, by avocation, managed the archives of the B&O Railroad Historical Society and its research activities for the past decade. Currently he is researching the history of railroads of Pittsburgh and is working on an article on John W. Barriger III’s role as federal manager of the Toledo, Peoria and Western in 1942.

John P. Hankey is an independent scholar, historian, and railroader. A native of Baltimore, he served the B&O Railroad in a variety of capacities including company historian, locomotive engineer, and Curator of the B&O Railroad Museum. He holds a B.S. from the John Hopkins University, an M.A. as a Hagley Fellow at the University of Delaware, and did further graduate study at the University of Chicago. Presently he is a consultant to railroads, railroad museums, and historic preservation projects throughout the United States.

Alison Hinderliter is the Manuscripts and Archives Librarian at the Newberry. Prior to this, she was a Project Archivist working on a variety of grant-funded archival projects at the Library, including the Newberry Library Archives, The Pullman Railroad Company Records, the Illinois Central Railroad Company Records, The Ann Barzel Dance Collection, Voices of the Prairie (social action-related collections), and Headlines from the Heartland (journalism-related collections). She has been an archivist in Chicago for over 20 years, working for the Chicago History Museum, The Chicago Public Library, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Old Town School of Folk Music. She holds a B.A. in English from Oberlin College and an M.L.I.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Patricia LaBounty is the Manager of the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, one of the oldest corporate collections and museums in America. Union Pacific’s collection draws visitors from all 50 states and more than 40 countries. Patricia received a B.A. in Anthropology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. With a background in Anthropology and Museum Studies, she began working at the Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding, Utah, shortly after graduation in 1993. Since that time, Patricia has worked in museums and supported archeological investigations in the desert southwest as well as in Botswana, Africa. She began working for the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in 2006.

Shelton Stromquist is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Iowa (PhD, University of Pittsburgh). He is the author of A Generation of Boomers: the Pattern of Railroad Labor Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (Univ of Illinois Press, 1987), Solidarity and Survival: An Oral History of Iowa Labor in the Twentieth Century (Univ of Iowa Press, 1993), and Reinventing “the People”: The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem and the Origins of Modern Liberalism (Univ of Illinois Press, 2006). Stromquist has published a number of edited volumes, including ones on the Pullman strike, the rhetoric of social history, meatpacking, and labor and the cold war.

William G. Thomas, III is the John and Catherine Angle Professor in the Humanities and Professor and Chair of History at the University of Nebraska. He is a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. He has produced award-winning digital history projects, including Valley of the Shadow with Edward L. Ayers and Anne S. Rubin. His most recent book, The Iron Way: Railroads, the Civil War, and the Making of Modern America (Yale University Press, 2011), was a 2012 Lincoln Prize Finalist. Thomas was the recipient of an NEH Digging Into Data Challenge for his work on Railroads and the Making of Modern America.