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- EIN 39-1917972
- info@railphoto-art.org
- 608-251-5785
- P O Box 259330 Suite 13 Madison WI 53725 USA
- www.railphoto-art.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Arts & Culture, Museums
Mission: The Center for Railroad Photography & Art is a nonprofit arts and educational organization that preserves and presents significant images of railroading, interpreting them in print, exhibitions, and on the Internet The Railroad Heritage community finds these emphases important because images reach wider audiences than texts, because Internet availability serves the majority and because many fewer persons travel to museums or seek out historic trains and equipment on their own. The visual representations touch on all aspects of America's railroads--workers, travelers, advertising, and publicity and more in contrast to the emphasis of most railroad-related historical and preservation organizations.
Results: Trains magazine recently awarded the Center its 2010 preservation grant of $10,000 to make publicly available the 15,000 railroad photographs of Wallace W. Abbey, an honoree of Railway & Locomotive Historical Society’s photography awards program in 2003. The grant demonstrates trust in the Center, its work, and future promise.
Programs: Chicago project - "railroaders: jack delano's homefront photography" is an exhibition and publication program in conjunction with the chicago history museum (chm). The exhibition features 60 photographs at the chm from april 4, 2014, through august 2016 (extended by one year). The center published a hardbound, 200-page catalog to accompany the exhibition and prepared several public events and programs during the course of the exhibition. The project examines the lives of 49 railroad workers in the chicago area photographed by jack delano during world war ii. The center developed biographies of the portrait subjects through extensive genealogical research and interviews. Close to 400 people attended the opening reception at the museum, held on april 4, 2014. The museum estimates more than 100,000 visitors saw the exhibition in 2014.
conference - three day event held on the campus of lake forest college featuring presentations about railroad photography and art. 2014 saw record attendance of 180. Attendees came from throughout the u. S. (more than 20 states) and a few foreign countries. The event gives photographers and researchers the opportunity to network and exchange ideas, both through formal programming and social activities.
springer collection - collection of approximately 55,000 photographs donated to the center by photographer fred m. Springer, covering railroads on six continents from 1950 to the early 200s. The center completed processing work on the 47,000 color images in the collection in its madison office. 14,000 of them are now available for public viewing on the center's flickr site. We share them regularly on other social media outlets, including twitter and facebook, where we recently topped 4,000 followers. An article in the winter 2015 issue of railroad heritage (published in december 2014) presented an overview of the collection and highlights of its photographs. Processing work of the approximately 8,000 black-and-white photographs is ongoing at the lake forest college library, the center's archival partner. A new book published by the center in 2015, "significant images of railroading", presents photographs from the center's ten principal collections and includes fourteen pages on the springer collection. Funding provided by the springer family enabled the center to engage three graduate student interns; one in madison, wi and two in lake forest, il.