Some other "Prosperity Special" shots, some of which are from sellers on e-bay:
http://c590298.r98.cf2.rackcdn.com/NGM1_164.JPG
On the PRR, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society:
http://www.prrths.com/PRR_Images/l1s.jpg
http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/ ... 1215/m1/1/
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b39319/
Another shot on the PRR:
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo ... ving-yards
Many people may not recall this, but there was a recession in this country in about 1921. This was because the government quit spending money on munitions and airplanes and ships and things following WW I. Most people don't recall it, as it was overshadowed first by the booming 1920s and then the horrible Great Depression. As noted, this was a publicity ploy by Baldwin and Sam Vauclain to boost confidence in the economy of the time.
It's also interesting to recall that such a recession was a serious concern for economists who were looking at the end of WW II; they feared something similar would happen when the government cancelled all those contracts for P-51s, B-17s, and Sherman tanks. What it appears they hadn't counted on was (a) a decade of depression prior to WW II, which had a lot of pent-up demand people weren't able to pay for, and (b) rationing during WW II as an anti-inflationary measure and war support policy, which also contributed to the pent-up demand and which, through war bonds, also resulted in a huge level of savings that went to pay for so much of the immediate postwar prosperity of the late 1940s.
|
