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• Transport historiography: features and sources
• What kind of transport history do we need?
• The origins and developments of transport history in Europe and America
• Transport History in Italy

The origins and developments of transport history in Europe and America

Transport history, as separate subject of study, has British origins and dates back to the second decade of the XXth century, with the two books of E.A. Pratt, A history of inland transport and communication in England, 1912; and W.T. Jackman, The development of transportation in modern England, Cambridge, 1916. Edwin Pratt was an English journalist, author of numerous other popular books about specific aspects of the means of conveyance, while William Jackman was a researcher and became professor of Transportation at the University of Toronto in 1931. He transfered the study of history and economy of transport in America, beginning a school on this matter.

His book of 1916 (reprinted in 1962) was devoid of predecessors and particularly detailed. For the writing out, Jackman needed almost a decade of analysis of records. In the Preface he wrote:

“It is impossible to study at first hand and from the original sources such a comprehensive subject as this without being impressed by its vital connexion with the other phases of the national evolution; and it has required much self-restraint to keep from branching out farther into a discussion of the relation of transportation to the progress of agriculture, the growth of markets, the advance of industry, the increase of wealth, and many other economic factors which have affected the welfare of different classes of the people and of the nation as a whole” (Preface, p. XXXI).

In the following years historiography about railways began to spread and transport history achieved a slow performance in Great Britain, Canada and United States, until the foundation in 1953 of “The Journal of Transport History”, editor Jack Simmons, professor at the University of Leicester, and joint editor a friend of him, Michael Robbins, official of the London Transport. With growing fortune the “Journal” succeded in putting together the ample publishing activity of the transport history lovers – very numerous in each nation and second in quantity only to the local historians – with the research of an academic school devoted to the study of the history of transport technology, examined in its political, economic and social features.

Except for a brief interruption between 1967 and 1970 the review is still alive, become a world reference for transport history, not only in contemporary age but also in previous periods. Its presence promoted in the Anglo-American historiography other works: C.I. Savage, An economic history of transport, London, Hutchinson, 1959 (revised 1974); H.J. Dyos – D.H. Aldcroft, British transport. An economic survey from the seventeenth century to the twentieth, London, 1969 (revised 1974); P.S. Bagwell, The transport revolution from 1770, New York-London, 1974 (revised 1988); S.P. Ville, Transport and the development of European economy 1750-1918, Houndmills-Basingstoke-Hampshire, Macmillan, 1990.

The maritime history shew a tendency to stand out from the history of inland transport: in 1989 (after a first publication since 1970) “The International Journal of Maritime History” began to issue.

Another review has just issued in Spain: “Transportes Servicios y Telecomunicaciones”, regarding all the vast world of communications. To be marked out also two historiographical reviews devoted to railways: the American “Railroad History”, issued in the United States since 1921, as organ of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, and the French “Revue d'Histoire des Chemins de Fer”, published since 1989 as organ of the Association pour l'Histoire des Chemins de fer en France.

Some articles concerning the progress of transport history in the different countries have been published in “The Journal of Transport History”: about Great Britain, J. Butt, Achievement and prospect. Transport history in the 1970s and 1980s, in “The Journal of Transport History”, March 1981, pp. 1-24; M. Robbins, The progress of transport history, in “The Journal of Transport History”, March 1991, pp. 74-87; about France, where transport history always received a great attention after the second world war, with a predominance of historiography about railways, followed by roads and water transport since the 1970s, M. Merger, Transport history in France: a bibliographical review, in “The Journal of Transport History”, September 1987, pp. 179-201; about Germany and Austria, where transport history didn't assume – until very recent times – an academic authority, remaining confined among the transport lovers, M. Robbins, Some recent railway history in German. A review article, in “The Journal of Transport History”, March 1988, pp. 109-117; about the Dutch case, which presents a particular relation between canals and railways, H.J. de Jong, Dutch inland transport in the nineteenth century: a bibliographical review, in “The Journal of Transport History”, March 1992, pp. 1-22.

Some essays about the international historiography concerning the different means of conveyance were published in the issue of the “Journal” of September 1993, 40th anniversary from the foundation. Such essays reported the results obtained and the necessity of investigations in the fields less known: T. Gourvish, What kind of railway history did we get? Forty years of research, pp. 111-125; D.M. Williams, The progress of maritime history 1953-93, pp. 126-141; T.C. Barker, Slow progress: forty years of motoring research, pp. 142-165; P.J. Lyth, The history of commercial air transport: a progress report 1953-93, pp. 166-180.

Many conferences were accomplished in the last decade about transport history, most of them regarding railway history. In England an Institute of Railway Studies was jointly created in 1995 by the National Railway Museum and the University of York, in order to realize historic research in the field of transports and particularly of railways. The Institute issues a Master of Art (MA) degreee in Railway Studies. Information about the Institute of Railway Studies can be found at http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/irs/, which contains also numerous links to other institutions involved in transport history.

Finally, we can remember the work carried out for the production of international historical maps about the transport networks, A. Carreras – A. Giuntini – M. Goerke, Towards a computerized historical Atlas of European transports and communications, 19th-20th centuries, in Cohordinates for historical maps, edited by M. Goerke, Goettingen, Max Planck Institut für Geschichte, 1994, pp. 121-132.