Between the Covers

Unbound. Handbill. Measuring 5" x 8". Small tape shadow, evidence of having been removed from a scrapbook or from another leaf, about very good. Inscribed by Train to J. F. Hart, Esq. of Elmira N.Y. "Nov. 09. Geo. Francis Train. Three cheers for the Elmira boys. Done in that vicinity three years since when surveying A. & G.W.R.R."

Strongly supporting the Union cause, as displayed in this handbill, Train also gave influential speeches in England, where he had business interests, denouncing the Confederacy. He was a remarkable figure: a visionary, gold miner in Australia, journalist, and land speculator, who among other things was largely responsible for the extension of the Union Pacific Railroad into the West, making a fortune in the process. His frantic trip around the world in 80 days in 1870 was said to be the inspiration for Jules Verne's 1873 novel. In 1867 Susan B. Anthony enlisted Train to the cause of women, and the two of them traversed Kansas, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a former Kansas governor simultaneously did the same, all in support of amendments to the Kansas Constitution to remove the words "male" and "white," thus enfranchising both women and blacks.

*OCLC* locates no copies of this handbill, but does locate a similar handbill at the AAS dated two weeks earlier by Guild announcing Train's "...first lecture since his return from Europe."

Item #433068