All Aboard -An exhibition explores the impact of the railroad on American life through the lens of the country's most prominent painters

Many would argue that no single technological advancement had such a profound impact on the cultural geography or social topography of the United States as the advent of the railroad. In an exploration of how the arrival of trains impacted the visual culture during the rapid industrialization and expansion of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Shelburne Museum presents All Aboard: The Railroad in American Art, 1840-1955.

Many would argue that no single technological advancement had such a profound impact on the cultural geography or social topography of the United States as the advent of the railroad. In an exploration of how the arrival of trains impacted the visual culture during the rapid industrialization and expansion of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Shelburne Museum presents All Aboard: The Railroad in American Art, 1840-1955.

Represented in the exhibition are renowned artists Thomas Cole, Ernest Lawson, Jacob Lawrence, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Theodore Kauffman, Albert Bierstadt, John Sloan, Reginald Marsh, Thomas Hart Benton, and many others.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) Approaching a City, 1946. Oil on canvas, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C Acquired 1947.

Comprised of 40 works sourced from private and public collections, the exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: Smoke in the Wilderness: American Landscape Painting and the Railroad, 1840 1900, Industry and Urbanization: The Railroad and American Art in the Progressive Era, and The Lonely Rail, and Passengers All: People on the Train in American Art, 1900-1950.

Taken together, All Aboard shines a spotlight on the influence of the railroad on the history of American art, from its beginnings as a technological wonder, connecting the country coast to coast, to its role as a driver of industry and urbanization at the turn of the century, and its eventual adoption by artists drawn to the subject for its modernist potential.

Samuel Woolf (1880- 1948), The Under World, ca. 1909-10. Oil on canvas. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

The exhibition also touches upon how this new mode of travel transformed how individuals perceived distance and time, and facilitated novel, diverse social interactions, highlighted in depictions of rail workers and passengers.