Name Shirley Burman | ||
Education University of California, Davis | ||
Shirley Burman (born 1934) is a railroad photographer, historian of women's work in the railroad industry, and creator of the traveling photo exhibition, Women and the American Railroad.
Burman received a BA in Art from the University of California-Davis in 1972. She was an illustrator for the California State Parks in 1974, and a documentary photographer for the U.S. federal government in 1976. She resumed employment with the California State Parks in 1978 as a photographer for the California State Railroad Museum's restoration projects.
Since 1983, Burman has been a self-employed railroad photographer and designer. Together with her late husband, the railroad photographer Richard Steinheimer, she produced a book, Whistles Across the Land, in 1994. She lives in Sacramento, California.
Burman established a non-profit corporation called The Women's Railroad History Project. It is a repository for oral histories, photographic and artifact collections, and other historical research. Selections from Burman's international traveling exhibitions Women and the American Railroad TM were compiled into a 1995 wall calendar "Women and the American Railroad."