About World's Transportation Commission Photograph Collection World's Transportation Commission Photograph Collection Railroad publicist Joseph Gladding Pangborn organized the World's Transportation Commission to gather information about foreign transportation systems, especially railroads, for the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. At that time, the Field Columbian Museum had acquired several exhibits from the World's Columbian Exposition, including extensive displays on transportation and the railway. The U. S. was in the midst of an economic depression when Pangborn's grand tour began. He intended to win friends for American businesses interested in international markets by gathering information about the far away lands and providing information about products available from the States. The pace slowed in Ceylon, and as the group toured India, Oceania, China, and Siberia, Jackson produced more images illustrating native life, influences of modern civilization, and picturesque scenery.
Lantern slides are glass, positive transparencies.
They are the forerunner of today's color slides. The machine used to project the slides was frequently called a magic lantern. Since lantern slides were usually made from a negative, some images may appear twice, as both a lantern slide and a photograph. To make the lantern slides look more realistic, their creators colored them by hand with dyes and paints. The image titles have been taken from nineteenth-century information found with the images.