In recent decades, railroads have taken a backseat to jumbo jets and SUVs in the transportation world. Tom Cornillie is looking to reexamine the legacy of America’s railroads with a book investigating their role in forming communities, shaping regional economics and employing thousands of workers.
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“Railroads shaped communities across the U.S.,” says Cornillie, a reference assistant specializing in transportation, urban development and military geography in the Map Library at the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. “Changes in transportation policy and technology between the 1940s and 1980s changed employment and development patterns across these communities. I look at how they adapted to this shift.”
With a grandfather employed by the railroad, Cornillie traveled by train on family vacations. These trips developed his interest in railroads.
“Taking the trains through the mountains of Pennsylvania, I saw the small towns that developed in the 19th century and how they looked very different from the suburb I grew up in,” he says.
Cornillie pursued the subject during his studies at U-M, where in 2003 he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and sociology. His honors thesis is the springboard for his book, he says.
So far Cornillie’s research has focused primarily on northwest Michigan and the Chicago area, although he eventually wants to do an international comparison of railroad systems and their relationship to different labor policies and government support.
Occasionally Cornillie’s discoveries surprise him, such as the strong grassroots effort that arose following the federal government’s proposal to abandon all railroads in the northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan in 1974.
“Typically these were very conservative communities, but when they were faced with the loss of rail service, they demanded that either the state or federal government take action to protect this service,” he says. “I didn’t expect to see that kind of passion and personal involvement.”
Cornillie consults a wide array of resources to get the information he needs, including primary sources such as court records and business documents and the National Archives in College Park, Md., and Northwestern University’s transportation library—the largest in the world. The personal interviews, however, are the most rewarding for him.
“I try to find people who authored the documents I find in archives and talk about what they did with the railroad or government to get their perspective,” Cornillie says. “I’ve had great luck in finding people that have been willing to open up and share with me what they did years ago.”
Working 20-30 hours a week on the project, Cornillie has completed 50-60 percent of his research and 20 percent of the book, along with various smaller projects. He hopes to have the manuscript done within the next two years.
When he is not at the map library or working on his research, Cornillie enjoys photography, painting and drawing.
