Andrew J. Russell
Andrew Joseph Russell (1830–1902) was a 19th-century American photographer of the Civil War and Union Pacific Railroad.[1] Russell was the official photographer of the eastern half of the first transcontinental railroad. His best known photograph shows the joining of the rails at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869.
[edit] Civil War
Andrew Joseph Russell was born in New Hampshire in 1829, though he was raised in New York City. Russell began his training as a painter before volunteering for the Union Army in the Civil War. There he was assigned to the United States Military Railroad Construction Corps, in part because of his family history in canal and railroad construction. In that role he photographed primarily transportation subjects for the Union, but was responsible for a few photographs of more historical and graphical interest sold to and distributed by the Mathew Brady Studios. One such was "Confederate dead Behind the Stone Wall" after the battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863. After the end of the Civil War, Russell was commissioned by the Union Pacific Railway Company to make pictures of every aspect of the construction of the eastern (Union Pacific constructed) portion of the transcontinental railroad. While he is perhaps most famous for his iconic image of the laying of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, his album-book, Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery included often spectacular photographs of the technologies of railroad building laid across the wastelands of the American West.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "ANDREW J. RUSSELL STEREOGRAPH CATALOG". ANDREW J. RUSSELL STEREOGRAPH CATALOG. http://cprr.org/Museum/Russell_Catalog.html. Retrieved 2006-06-09.
[edit] External links
- Andrew J. Russell — 19th Century Photographer of the Union Pacific Railroad
- Photographs by Andrew J. Russell available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
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