Customer Reviews

Moonlight in Duneland: The Illustrated History of the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad

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"Moonlight in Duneland" is a wonderfully subtle exploration of a marriage between the golden age of advertising and twilight of passenger rail service in suburban Chicago and northwest Indiana.

The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad has served the region for about ninety years, but in the 1920s the once floundering commuter train became a sudden success due to the advertising campaign commissioned by new owner Samuel Insull.

Intending to create a ridership for the line, the ad campaign showed sophisticated Chicagoans what wonderful scenery and activities waited for them a short ride east in Indiana. The lithographs reprinted on the pages of "Moonlight in Duneland" are wonderfully rendered in the style of such illustrators as Maxfield Parrish and the Prairie Deco artists of the day. Each poster illustrates one of the many activities in different seasons. One could see Notre Dame football in the fall; relax on the Lake Michigan beaches in the summer; or snow ski on the Dunes in winter. The pages are mainly full page reprints of the photos with just enough text in the front of the book for explanation.

This book is very well made and the prints are very well reproduced. I recommend it to anyone, but fans of Art Deco design and railroad enthusiasts will enjoy it.

i bought this book for the posters, and for the memories it brought to life. i was surprised at how entertaining the writing was. i am not a railroad buff, but i found the stories most interesting. you do not have to be from (da region) to enjoy the stories, and the posters are an absolute delight. if the book ever comes back into stock, i plan to buy several and make gifts of them.

We will never see these lovely posters on the hoardings in Chicagoland or Northwestern Indiana, but this wonderful book does as much as is possible to capture the glory of that long-gone, pre-Depression advertising age. The articles are interesting to railway aficianados and help to put the artworks in their proper context, but the crowning glories of the book are the full-page reproductions of all the known surviving South Shore Line posters. Yes, it was a simpler time; and No, the artists were not on the forefront and fringes of experimentation. But the posters do not pretend to be anything other than what they are--railway advertising--and they are superb examples of that, comparing favorably with the contemporaneous works of the Big Four in Britain, who were themselves experiencing a Golden Age at the time. Now if only someone would do for North Shore Line posters what this book does for the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railway! Buy two copies: one for the shelf, and one to cannibalize for prints to frame. (I know, I know, the thought of cutting up a book was anathema to me at first, but the results were spectacular.)

This book uses wonderful illustrative posters with related essays to bring alive the past and the present of an important, but neglected region of the country. It also showcases how important a commuter train can be, causing hope that they will once again become more available in other areas.

A must-have coffee table book for anyone connected to N.W. Indiana. Living history in a medium long past.

This is more an art history type of book than railroad history