Jesse Hutchinson and B.W. Thayer & Co, “’Get off the track!’ A song for emancipation, sung by The Hutchinsons,” 1844, via Library of Congress.

The “transportation revolution” shaped economic change in the early 1800s, but the massive construction of railroads also had a profound impact on American politics and culture. This sheet music title page shows how abolitionists used railroad imagery to advocate for the immediate emancipation of enslaved people and to promote their political platform before the 1844 presidential election.