Frances Flora Bond Palmer, called “Fanny,” was born in England and received artistic training early in life, including the study of drawing, perspective, and watercolor. Married in 1832 to Edmund Seymour Palmer, Fanny established a drawing school of her own in Leicester.  Following her father’s death in 1839, the Palmers decided to enter the lithography business. They established their firm in Leicester in 1842; by January of 1844 they had immigrated to New York to found F. & S. Palmer. Fanny quickly established her reputation with work exhibited at the National Academy of Design.

Fanny Palmer had worked with Nathaniel Currier as early as 1849. After her own firm closed in 1851, she became one of the most important and prolific artists at Currier and Ives. Creating more than 200 lithographs for Currier and Ives, she designed several images comparable to American Express Train in that they present large renderings of trains or steamboats, rely on strong diagonals in the composition, and sometime capitalize on the drama of fires and lamplight in nighttime settings. This scene clearly suggests the railroads’ rapid displacement of steamships and canal systems as the United States’ most important means of transportation.