Nieuwjaarswens van de Amsterdamse nachtwacht voor het jaar 1875 1874 - 1875

This New Year’s card from 1875 was created by an anonymous Amsterdam night watch. It’s a lithograph printed with ink on paper. This print commemorates the opening of the Oosterspoor railway line. Its design blends an image of the station with text celebrating the railway’s accessibility, offering affordable travel from Amsterdam to the Gooiland region. The Amsterdam night watch offer this print as a gift to their fellow citizens. What's striking is the way the image functions as a kind of social document. Rail travel had a transformative impact on Dutch society, connecting urban centers with more rural areas and altering perceptions of distance and time. The night watch, as civic guardians, acknowledge and celebrate this development, aligning themselves with progress and public service. To understand this image fully, one might examine railway archives, period newspapers, and city records. Such sources provide a richer understanding of the social, economic, and institutional contexts that shaped both the creation and the reception of this artwork.