The Age of Advertising / The Age of the Railroad: Pennsylvania Railroad (January 15, 1945)

American Car and Foundry has survived; other corporations have not. 

Among them, Pennsylvania Railroad.

The advertisement below – from January 15, 1945 – has a title that proved to be as optimistic as it was ironic, for after merging with New York Central Railroad in 1968, the resulting firm, the Penn Central Transportation Company, filed for bankruptcy in 1970. 

The advertisement combines three elements to produce a striking image.  On the left, symbolizing the future, new designs for railroad cars are displayed on a unfurled blueprint, against which are placed a T-square and right triangle.  Translucent images of those “future” railroad cards are shown below.  On the right, a fleet of existing freight and railroad cars, en route from “a city” and “factory” pass by a suburban rail station.  In the background, stylized images of that city and factory are set against the horizon of a cloudless sky, surrounded by farmland.  Above all is the emblem of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Though “this” example of the advertisement was published in The New York Times, certainly the original advertisement was in color, and probably intended for publication in magazines.  Here’s an example of the original ad, from Pinterest:

Here is the full text of the advertisement:

EYES ON TOMORROW

On drawing board and blueprint, in research laboratory and on testing machines you will find the shape of things-to-come in railroading.

We know the American public expects great things – new, modern trains; daring designs; exciting and novel innovations; new power; new speed; new riding qualities; new comforts and luxuries; new services and ideas in travel, in shipping … in a word, transportation values beyond anything known or experienced before.

In its planning, the Pennsylvania Railroad has these things in mind – for it is a tradition of this railroad to look ahead, and apply its research to finding new ways to serve the traveling and shipping public better!

★ 50,757 entered the Armed Forces ☆ 532 have given their lives for their Country
BUY UNITED STATES WAR BONDS AND STAMPS

That the advertisement was created during the Second World War is strikingly evident by one particular facet of the text:  The number of Pennsylvania Railroad Employees who died on WW II military service.  Though listed as 532, the actual number is more than twice as many: 1,307.  The discrepancy was likely attributable to the fact that the advertisement was created before the war actually ended, and thus, well before the status of all casualties (especially those missing in action) was verified.

The 1,307 men are memorialized at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, in the form of a bronze sculpture showing the Archangel Michael lifting a fallen soldier out of the “flames of war”.  The sculpture is set atop a four-sided black granite base, upon the sides of which are bronze plaques listing the soldiers’ names in alphabetical order, and, bearing symbols of the four branches of the armed forces.

Designed by Walter Hancock and unveiled in 1952, the sculpture is – even decades later – extraordinarily striking. 

References

Pennsylvania Railroad, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad

Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_World_War_II_Memorial