Railways and Commemoration: Anniversaries, Commemorative Cultures and the Making of Railway History

本项目研究铁路公共文化的一个重要方面：周年纪念。在这样做的时候，它将阐明在铁路部门的企业和商业身份的建设和维护，以及在铁路历史的叙述已经随着时间的推移构建的方式，也将整合铁路纪念文化的分析与纪念作为现代社会的一个显着特征的更广泛的研究。大多数周年纪念活动都集中在政治纪念日、战争纪念日或文化人物的庆祝活动上：它主要涉及国家和民族社会层面的纪念活动。关于公司或机构纪念活动的研究要少得多，但这些活动为现代社会中发生的大量纪念活动提供了背景。虽然在科学和技术领域对纪念活动进行了重要的研究，但在商业史和组织研究方面，只有少数研究涉及企业或组织如何唤起、解释和纪念企业的过去。铁路为这种研究提供了一个绝佳的机会。铁路有着悠久而多样的纪念传统，其在两个世纪的技术和组织变革中的持续性使其成为纪念实践中连续性和适应性的令人钦佩的案例研究。铁路在塑造现代社会中的中心地位也意味着，铁路纪念活动与各种其他身份（地方、国家和国际）和话语（进步、技术、商业、旅行、专业等）的表达反复交叉。该项目的重点是英国铁路周年纪念活动。周年纪念活动-无论是关注特定公司/线路历史上的关键日期，还是著名的机车，还是标志性工程师和企业家的生活-自世纪中期以来一直是铁路历史文化的重要特征。通过周年纪念活动，铁路公司肯定和庆祝自己的身份，并声称公众认可他们对进步和国家发展的贡献。纪念活动是国家和地方的重大活动，涉及铁路界内部（雇主、工人和工会之间）以及铁路界与其他利益集团之间的复杂互动，并产生了多种多样的纪念形式-演讲、盛会、展览、晚宴、宗教仪式、纪念馆、奖章、纪念方案、纪念册、诗歌和视觉图像。周年纪念活动是一个迷人的棱镜，通过它可以看到纪念过程的社会动态，以及铁路在现代社会中的多方面参与。NRM的藏品为这一领域的研究提供了无与伦比的基础。利用这些馆藏，在其他档案（国家档案馆，大英图书馆，地方图书馆和档案馆）的材料，并在新闻界，该项目将探讨以下问题：铁路周年纪念的形式如何变化和演变随着时间的推移？这一纪念活动如何构建和界定公司、团体和机构的身份？纪念活动如何塑造和阐明对铁路历史及其与地方、国家和跨国历史关系的不同叙事理解？对周年纪念活动的研究如何能产生新的和创造性的方法来处理物品及其在博物馆展览中的部署？如何利用这项研究来促进关于纪念活动在当今社会中的功能以及像NRM这样的博物馆在这些功能中的作用的辩论和创造性思维？

This project investigates a key aspect of the public culture of railways: the commemorative marking of anniversaries. In doing so, it will shed light both on the building and maintenance of corporate and business identities in the railway sector, and on the ways in which narratives of railway history have been constructed over time, and will also integrate the analysis of railway commemorative cultures with the broader study of commemoration as a salient feature of modern societies. Most work on anniversary commemoration has focused on political anniversaries, war commemoration, or the celebration of cultural figures: it has been largely concerned with commemoration at the level of the state and of national society. Far less work has been done on corporate or institutional commemorative practices, yet these supply the context for a great deal of the commemorative activity that occurs in modern societies. Though important research has been done on commemoration in the fields of science and technology, work in business history and organization studies has generated only a handful of studies dealing with how businesses or organizations evoke, interpret and commemorate the corporate past.Railways offer an outstanding opportunity for this kind of study. Railways have long and varied commemorative traditions, whose persistence across two centuries of technological and organizational change makes them an admirable case study of continuities and adaptations in commemorative practice. The centrality of railways to the shaping of modern societies also means that railway commemorative practices intersect repeatedly with the articulation of a wide range of other identities (local, national and international) and discourses (of progress, technology, business, travel, professionalism, etc.)The key focus of the project is railway anniversary commemoration in Britain. Anniversary events - whether focused on key dates in the history of particular companies/lines, or famous locomotives, or the lives of iconic engineers and entrepreneurs - have been an essential feature of the historical culture of railways since the mid-nineteenth century. Through anniversary commemoration, railway companies affirmed and celebrated their own identity, and staked a claim to public recognition of their contribution to progress and national development. Commemorative events were significant national and local occasions, involving complex interactions both within the railway community (between employers, workers and unions) and between that community and other interests, and generating a rich diversity of commemorative forms - speeches, pageants, exhibitions, dinners, religious services, memorials, medallions, souvenir programmes, commemorative volumes, poems and visual imagery. Anniversary events are a fascinating prism through which to view the social dynamics of the commemorative process, and the multifaceted involvement of railways in modern society.The NRM's holdings offer an unrivalled basis for research in this area. Drawing on these holdings, on materials in other archives (National Archives, British Library, local libraries and archives), and on the press, the project will explore the following questions: How have the forms of railway anniversary commemoration varied and evolved over time? How has this commemoration constructed and defined corporate, group and institutional identities? How have commemorative events shaped and articulated different narrative understandings of railway history, and of its relationship to local, national and transnational histories? How can research into anniversary commemorations generate fresh and creative approaches to objects and to their deployment in museum displays? How can this research be used to prompt debate and creative thinking about the functions of commemoration in today's society, and about the role of museums like the NRM in relation to these functions?