In 1848, the city opened its first railroad station and then grew exponentially. Chicago, first recorded in the late 1670s as a trading post among Native Algonquin peoples and French traders, numbered fewer than 5,000 residents as late as 1840. People and products moved across the United States along great trunk lines and arteries, tied with the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. In the United States, railroads made an indelible impression. (Russia, quite purposefully, chose a different track gauge than its neighbors.) But in the 1800s, the century of the railroads, steam-powered trains gradually and then seemingly inexorably brought together disparate areas across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Before the steam engine, distance could be destiny. Most important for overland mobility, steam powered the railroads. Steam propelled the world’s navies and gave rise to an intricate network of coaling stations, coaling islands, tugboats, cruise ships-not least, nor most fortunate, the RMS Titanic-battleships, and dreadnoughts. Steam had been ascendant for a century it powered the Industrial Revolution. When the Stanleys put their working model on the road, steam dominated commerce. For two remarkable years, in the days before the Ford Model T, it was the highest-selling car in the country. They created their automobile in a rapidly industrializing United States, in 1897, and five years later branded it the Stanley Steamer. And, inculcated by 19th-century industry, they imagined a car that would run on steam. They strove for a vehicle that was intuitive and reliable. What would you imagine as the “car of the future,” if you were imagining it 125 years ago? At the end of the 19th century, the Stanley brothers-twins Francis and Freelan-imagined an automobile that would be aesthetically pleasing.
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