Additional Reading
It is our hope for this exhibit that it inspires interest, inquiry, and investigation among its readers. For more information on the collections used in this exhibit, or for additional readings on the rich topic of air transportation in Africa during the era of independence, please see the resources highlighted below.
Collections Represented in this Exhibit
Annual Reports
International in scope, the Transportation Library’s collection of annual reports documents the financial and operational history of transportation companies around the world from the 1820s to the present. This includes over 18,000 reports from companies around the world, including those that served Africa during the 1960s and beyond.
George M. Foster Timetable Collection
The George M. Foster Timetable Collection comprises thousands of timetables, representing over 200 transportation companies from around the world. These include air, rail, and water transportation, with a particular focus on mid-to-late 20th century air transportation. Please contact the Transportation Library for more information, or to access this collection.
Books
The Economics and Political Economy of African Air Transport, edited by Kenneth Button, Gianmaria Martini, and Davide Scotti.
Encyclopedia of African Airlines by Ben R. Guttery
Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation, 1919-39 by Gordon Pirie
Reports
Air Transport in Africa. A Joint Study by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Economic Commission for Africa. July, 1964.
Compendium of Air Transport Integration and Cooperation Initiatives in Africa. Economic Commission for Africa, 2005.
World Survey of Civil Aviation: Africa. U.S. Department of Commerce, Business and Defense Services Administration, 1960.
Articles and Book Chapters
Oxford Bibliographies. Transportation – African Studies. By Gordon Pirie.
“The Development of African Air Transport,” by Berendien Lubbe and Svetlana Shornikova. In The Economics and Political Economy of African Air Transport, edited by Kenneth Button, Gianmaria Martini, and Davide Scotti.
“Geographies of Air Transport in Africa: Aviation’s ‘Last Frontier,'” by Gordon Pirie. In The Geographies of Air Transport, edited by Lucy Budd and Andrew R. Goetz.
Online Exhibits from the Transportation Library
On Board with Design
On Board with Design: Passenger Transportation and Graphic Design in the Mid-20th Century draws from the special and circulating collections at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library to highlight examples of branding and graphic design in the form of passenger ephemera such as menus, timetables, and ticket envelopes, as well as through the library’s extensive collection of annual reports.
Lovers of the Open Road and the Flying Wheel
In the spring of 1915, the party shown here departed Iowa in a Model T for a journey to the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco. This photo, taken between Woodbine and Logan on the Lincoln Highway, is the second photo in an album of over one hundred photos documenting the trip, which is in our collection and is the subject of the online exhibition Lovers of the Open Road and the Flying Wheel.
Bicycles on Paper
As it is today, the bicycle at the turn of the 20th century was a form of transportation, recreation, amusement, and a creator of community. The online exhibit Bicycles on Paper looks at bicycles in all of these forms through printed matter in the collection of Northwestern University’s Transportation Library.
O'Hare @50
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of O’Hare International Airport in 2013, the Northwestern University Transportation Library, using its collections and staff resources, developed the digital exhibit O’Hare @50, presenting copies of unique airport planning documents, research and archival resources.
More Information
Items in the exhibit are housed at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library and the Herskovits Library of African Studies. Email transportationlibrary@northwestern.edu or africana@northwestern.edu with questions, or to schedule an appointment.