Today’s #WorkerWednesday post features a ca. 1890 group photograph of a railroad construction crew for the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company, seen here at work near New Bridge Station.
The Wilmington and Northern Railroad was a branch of the Reading Railroad system, and it ran between Wilmington, Delaware, and Reading, Pennsylvania. The workers who built the railroad made it possible for the various industrial plants located along Brandywine Creek to connect with other railroads leading to the west and to the anthracite coal regions of western Pennsylvania.
This photograph is part of the Hagley Library’s Pierre A. Gentieu Brandywine River Valley photographs (Accession 1970.001). Pierre A. Gentieu (1842-1930) was a long-time employee of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and his photographs document the DuPont Company Powder Yards as well as the surrounding community. To see more images from this collection, visit its page in our Digital Archive by clicking here.