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TABLE OF CONTENTSInventory |
Guide to the William J. Rugen Image Collection
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Descriptive Summary | ||
| Creator | Rugen, William J., 1904-1996 | |
| Title | William J. Rugen Image Collection, | |
| Dates: | 1845-1966 | |
| Abstract: | William J. Rugen was an employee of the Long Island Railroad Company who pursued photography in his spare time. He traveled throughout the United States and Canada photographing trains, and trading pictures with other railroad photographers. The images in this collection include Rugen’s own photographs, and images he acquired from other photographers and collectors. Most of the photographs in this collection are of the Long Island Railroad. | |
| Extent: | 1,177 photographs, 2.9 cubic feet | |
| Identification: | R-16 | |
| Location: | The material is located in the Archives at Queens Library. | |
Historical/Biographical Note
Railroad photographer and historian William J. Rugen (1904-1996) was a longtime employee of the Long Island Railroad Company. He lived in Richmond Hill, Queens, within walking distance of the railroad’s Morris Park facility, where he worked as the engine house clerk, assigning engine crews to their locomotives each day. Because of his job, Mr. Rugen was highly knowledgeable about motive power and operations, and would often give tours of the engine house to visiting groups and individuals.
An avid railroad buff, Mr. Rugen devoted much of his spare time to photographing LIRR stations and trains, as well as subways and trolleys throughout Queens and Brooklyn. As a railroad employee he was also able to ride trains for free, and used this opportunity to travel throughout the eastern United States and Canada photographing trains. Mr. Rugen also traded photographs with other railroad enthusiasts, and acquired many of the images in his collection by this method. His photographs have appeared in the books “Steel Rails to the Sunrise” by Ron Ziel and “Diesels of the Sunrise Trail” by John J. Scala.
Mr. Rugen retired from the Long Island Rail Road in the late 1960s, but remained active as a railroad historian until the final years of his life, contributing photographs and other items from his collection to the Queens Borough Public Library, and assisting students and other historians with their research.
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Scope and Content Note
The William J. Rugen Image Collection contains photographs of Long Island Railroad stations and trains, as well as a small number of photographs depicting subways and trolleys in Queens and Brooklyn. The majority of these photographs were taken by Mr. Rugen himself, though a large number are copies of images by other photographers. The bulk of the collection consists of approximately 860 black and white prints of various sizes which have been mounted on 5x7 mat boards. The back of each mat board contains Mr. Rugen’s stamp, with a handwritten notation identifying the photo by the name of the railroad, the branch or division, the location, the date, and the direction in which the camera is facing. Also filed with this group of photographs are approximately 184 unmounted prints, about 124 of which had previously been included in a photograph album compiled by Mr. Rugen.
The Archives filed separately an additional 226 unmounted 8x10 prints. Approximately 120 of these are duplicates of mounted prints or prints from the album. Some were made from original Rugen negatives by Ron Ziel and others from copy negatives. The remaining 106 prints are unique images, most of them made by Mr. Ziel from Mr. Rugen’s original negatives. Also filed with this group of prints are the original pages from the abovementioned photograph album, containing Mr. Rugen’s handwritten descriptions of the images.
The negatives include both original negatives and copy negatives. Most of the copy negatives were made by Mr. Rugen from prints he acquired from other photographers or collectors. The remainder were made either by Ron Ziel or by the Archives at Queens Library.
Between 1968 and 1991 Mr. Rugen made several donations of Long Island Railroad material to the Archives at Queens Library. This material included timetables, track blueprints letters and memoranda. (Most of this material is described in the manuscript finding aid R-2, “The William J. Rugen Collection of Long Island Railroad Records”.) We believe that the original group of mounted prints and the photograph album may have been included with one of these donations. Later we added approximately 130 additional Rugen photographs (including both prints and negatives) which we had received with the Ron Ziel and Frank G. Zahn collections. We also added 57 original Rugen negatives that belonged with prints that were already in the Rugen collection. These negatives were also received with the Ziel collection.
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Arrangement
Physically, we have separated the photographs into prints and negatives. They have been filed according to size, by Archives at Queens Library control number.
The photographs are not organized in any particular order.
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Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Creator of item, date of item (if known), identification of item, if a photograph its control number. The William J. Rugen Image Collection, Archives at Queens Library, Queens Borough Public Library.
Provenance
Most of the collection was purchased from Ron Ziel; some photographs were donated later by Lillian Zahn.
Access Restrictions
Open for research without restrictions. Manuscripts are only available in the Archives at Queens Library, please call (718) 990-0770 for hours. Manuscript users will be required to complete the division's Manuscript Usage Form and deposit their photograph identification or Queens Borough Public Library card with a staff member. The identification will be returned to the user after she/he has returned the material. Manuscript users will deposit all their personal items behind the reference desk. Manuscript users must use the division's loose sheets of paper for note taking. To reiterate, no pen of any type is permitted. Paper and a pencil are available upon request. Manuscript users may be required to use special handling procedures depending on the conditions of the material.
Use Restrictions
Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the:
- Archives at Queens Library
- Queens Borough Public Library
- 89-11 Merrick Boulevard
- Jamaica, NY 11432
- Phone: (718) 990-0770.
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Access Points
Subject Names:
- Rugen, William J., 1904-1996
Subject Organizations:
- Long Island Rail Road
Subject Topics:
- Locomotives
- Railroad cars
- Railroad yards
- Railroads
Subject Places:
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Long Island (N.Y.)
- Queens (New York, N.Y.)
- Richmond Hill (New York, N.Y.)
Document Types:
- Photographs
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Inventory
[The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.]
