[This uncommon photo album documents the life of an engineer who attended Rutgers University, travels through Pennsylvania to the famed McKeesport Gas field boom, views museum exhibits of Wright Flyer Model B, and dinosaur fossils, and later worked for the Westinghouse factory building the massive generators for the Railroad Electrification projects which spread across the country after World War I. In addition, the compiler has included a number of photographs of overhead electric locomotives from the Boston & Maine RR, Pennsylvania RR, and the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway].

[Piscataway, NJ & Pittsburgh, PA: n.p., ca. 1919-1920]. Oblong folio. 13.75 x 10 in. [80 pp (unpaginated)], on thick black paper. With 107 original photographs, sized from 1.5 x 2.5 in. up to 8.5 x 11 in., with many of the photos containing neatly lettered captions below the images in white ink, a few of the images tinted blue, all securely mounted to the pages. Contemporary ribbed leather post-binder, brass screw posts at gutter margin, rounded corners, yapp edges (some scuffing, edgewear, rubbing, lifting to leather at spine), still a VG exemplar, w/ 8 pages from the Rutgers Scarlet Letter Yearbook laid-in. This remarkable album documents the life of a Pennsylvania Westinghouse engineer working on projects for the Railroad Electrification project. The album opens with photos of camping with Rutgers’ College friends along the Ohio River, the steamship Evelyn which was a 252 feet long iron steamer built for the Philadelphia & Gulf Steamship Co.; the West Penn Power Station on the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh, and hijinks with fraternity brothers. The album then displays photos of the Westinghouse factories, rail yards, bridges, and power plants near Pittsburgh. Of particular interest are the series of photographs illustrating the gas wells, derricks, and structures in the McKeesport, PA natural gas boom which lasted for from December, 1919 to the beginning of 1921 during which over $ 35 million was invested into over 500 acres of leases, and then went bust when only 180 wells ended up producing gas at the time. These are followed by a series of images showing the skyline of Pittsburgh, the Fort Pitt Bridge, and the sternwheeler Carbon docked at the shore. These are followed by photographs showing the manufacturing of immense Westinghouse Electric Generators, showing them in various stages of assembly, the factory floor, workers, the pulley driven power system for the plant, power transformers, rectifiers, as well as the construction of large diesel generator motors. The excellent large images which follow show electric locomotives, and Westinghouse brake systems being installed on locomotives, including a New Haven Baldwin-Westinghouse Class EP-1 for the Boston & Maine Railroad with the AC pantographs prominent; a Juniata-Westinghouse Class DD-1 locomotive for the Pennsylvania RR fitted with shorter DC pantographs fitted on top; two different images of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Baldwin-Westinghouse Class EP-3 electric locomotives which was built and delivered to run out of Three Forks, MT in December, 1919, and many others. See: Electrification of Four Mountain Divisions of the C.M. & St. Paul Railway, pp. 110-115; American Oil & Gas Historical Society, McKeesport Gas company (2016).