The first train passengers found the landscape blurred

The first train passengers found the landscape blurred, 2025 HD video, 15:56 min.

In her book River of Shadows, Rebecca Solniit recounts that the first train passengers observation of moving through the landscape at high speed was an introduction to the cinematic experience.

The first train passengers found the landscape blurred engages the work of Alexander Gardner, Alfred A. Hart, J.C.H. Grabill and A.J. Russell who photographed the construction of the American trans-continental railroad. Gardner worked with O’Sullivan photographing the Civil War before Gardner’s western adventure which included photographing the April 29, 1868 treaty signing at Fort Laramie Wyoming between the U.S. Government and the Sioux Nation in which the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. The breaking of this treaty, time and again, over many years, led to the great wars of the plains. The completion of the trans-continental railroad produced a human tributary that fed the settlement of the Cascadia region.

Click on images above for slide show