Central Pacific #52

In the nineteenth century, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way" served as a rallying cry for westward expansion in the name of American nationalism. The phrase appeared as a title for a U. S. Capitol mural, on Currier and Ives prints, and in photographs by Alexander Gardner, among others. In Ruwedel's ongoing series, the title strikes a broader, perhaps ironic, note. His stark photographs of the cuts, fills and grades wrought on the land with the construction of the railroads loom with an elegiac presence. They are at once testament to the ruins of faded glory and documents of the immense waste of abandoned industry.