From the Library of Congress’
Today in History, I found an exhibit of photographs from the
World’s Transportation Commission, 1894-1896, taken by American photographer William Henry Jackson.
In addition to railroads, elephants, camels, horses, sleds and sleighs, sedan chairs, rickshaws, and other types of transportation, Jackson photographed city views, street and harbor scenes, landscapes, local inhabitants, and Commission members as they travelled through North Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania.
Nine of the photographs are of
Madras, as Chennai was called at that time. Here is a view of Madras Railway Station:
Today the river is filthy, and its banks covered with slums, right down to the water’s edge. The station is still one of Chennai’s attractive buildings. And the scene around it is full of vitality, as thousands pass through it every day, eat, sleep, wait, rush from platform to platform...
Today the river is filthy, and its banks covered with slums, right down to the water’s edge. The station is still one of Chennai’s attractive buildings. And the scene around it is full of vitality, as thousands pass through it every day, eat, sleep, wait, rush from platform to platform...