A Summer’s Evening, Lithia, 1955

This photograph shows Charles W. Lugar and his wife, chatting with B.A. Fitzgerald, a retired section foreman with the Norfolk & Western railway. They are seated on a porch, the two men sitting on a swing, while a huge steam engine roars by incredibly close to where they are sitting. Link staged photographs like this to depict a romanticized scene of southern culture, while demonstrating how closely entwined the railroad was with certain communities in the south.