“To anyone outside, a speeding train is a thunderbolt of driving rods, a hot hiss of steam, a blurred flash
of coaches, a wall of movement and of noise, a shriek, a wail, and then just emptiness and absence,
with a feeling of “There goes everybody!” without knowing who anybody is. And all of a sudden the
watcher feels the vastness and loneliness of America, and the nothingness of all those little lives
hurled past upon the immensity of the continent.”
~Thomas Wolfe, taken from the novel ‘You Can’t Go home Again’
Photographer and writer Scott Lothes reminds us of the great dichotomy between those who could be on the train, and those who could not–and the sentiment is evident in Wolfe’s passage from ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’
Even though we often think of the 1920s as a remarkably prosperous decade in this country, it was in reality a decade of growing economic polarization. Only the wealthy could afford the luxury of hurtling about the country in Pullman sleeping cars. To so many others, especially in rural areas between the thriving cities, the passing trains were much less Pullman-esque. Instead they were a relentless thundering of boxcars filled with livestock serving only as a harsh and frequent reminder of their staid struggles for survival.
Weathered boxcar, Neligh, NE
Leave a note.