"Appleton's Railway and Steam Navigation Guide" Shows the Dramatic Growth of Railroads & Advertising

Appleton's Railway and Steam Navigation Guide, with its lithographed cover showing scenes of trains and steamboats in operation, reflected the enormous growth of thousands of miles of railroads and extensive steam navigation on rivers in the United States in the roughly forty years since these technologies were introduced. Besides the growth of the transportation technologies, the Guide is larded with advertisements all over its covers, on inserted leaves before and after the text, and on a large folding map included with the publication. Compare this to the very simple early guide (1837) for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. That described a railroad only 30 miles long, and contained no ads except mention of other publications by the author.