Monday, April 4, 2011

Lackawanna Coal Car on the Road of Anthracite


Traveling by train in the late 1800's and early 1900's could be a very grimey event for passengers who often completed their rail journey covered with coal soot.  Unless, of course, they were riding on a train pulled by an engine powered by relatively clean-burning anthracite coal.  The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company owned huge tracts of land rich with anthracite coal which they used on their trains.  This allowed them to boast about having clean passengers at the end of a journey.  They capitalized on this by creating an ad campaign that featured pictures of a fictional woman named Phoebe Snow dressed in clean white clothes, and the following poem:

Says Phoebe Snow, about to go
Upon a trip to Buffalo,
"My gown stays white from morn 'til night
Upon the road of anthracite."


















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