Rights And Responsibility of Working On The Railroad: Negro Porters vs The Southern Railway System
Pullman Porter History
Prior to the 1860s the concept of sleeping cars on railroads had not been widely developed. George Pullman pioneered sleeping accommodations on trains and by the late 1860s he was hiring only African-Americans to serve as porters. After the Civil War ended in 1865, Pullman knew that there was a large pool of former slaves who would be looking for work, and he also had a very clear racial conception. He was aware that most Americans, unlike the wealthy, didn’t have personal servants in their homes. Pullman knew that the wealthy were accustomed to being served by a liveried waiter or butler, but to staff the Pullman cars with humble workers in uniform was something that the American middle class had never experienced. Hence, part of the appeal of traveling on sleeping cars was, in a sense, to have an upper-class experience. From the very start porters were featured in Pullman's ads promoting his new sleeper service. Initially they were one of the features that most clearly distinguished his carriages from those of competitors, but eventually nearly all would follow his lead, hiring African-Americans as porters, cooks, waiters and Red Caps (railway station porters). While the pay was very low by the standards of the day, in an era of significant racial prejudice, being a Pullman porter was one of the best jobs available for African American men. Thus, for black men, while this was an opportunity, at the same time it was also an experience of being stereotyped as the servant class and having to take a lot of abuse. Many passengers called every porter “George,” as if he were George Pullman’s son, a practice that was born in the South where slaves were named after their slave masters, or in this case porters being seen as servants of George Pullman. The only ones who protested were other men named George, who founded the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George, or Porters were not paid a livable wage and needed to rely on tips to earn enough to make a living. Walter Biggs, son of a Pullman porter, spoke of memories of being a Pullman porter as told to him by his father: SPCSCPG, which eventually claimed 31,000 members. Although the SPCSCPG was more interested in defending the dignity of its white members than in achieving any measure of racial justice, it nevertheless had some effects for all porters. In 1926 the SPCSCPG persuaded the Pullman Company to install small racks in each car, displaying a card with the given name of the porter on duty. Of the 12,000 porters and waiters then working for Pullman, only 362 turned out to be named George. Stanley G. Grizzle, a former Canadian porter, titled his autobiography, My Name's Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. "One of the most remarkable stories I liked hearing about was how when Jackie Gleason would ride, all the porters would want to be on the cart he was in. The reason why? Not only because he gave every porter $100.00, but it was just the fun, the excitement, the respect that he gave the porters. Instead of their names being George, he called everybody by their first name. He always had like a piano in the car and they sang and danced and had a great time. He was just a fun person to be around. The number of porters employed by railroads declined as sleeping car service dwindled in the 1960s, and as railroad lines went bankrupt due to competition from the airlines. By 1969 the ranks of the Pullman sleeping car porters had declined to 325 men with an average age of 63.
A porter was expected to greet passengers, carry baggage, make up the sleeping berths, serve food and drinks, shine shoes, and keep the cars tidy. He needed to be available night and day to wait on the passengers. They were expected to always smile, thus the porters often called the job, ironically, “miles of smiles. ”It is not widely known that in the early 1900s, the heyday of luxury travel, the more luxurious trains also had African-American Pullman maids to care for women's needs, especially women with children. They were expected to assist ladies with their bath, be able to give manicures and dress hair, and assist with children. According to historian Greg LeRoy, "A Pullman Porter was really kind of a glorified hotel maid and bellhop in what Pullman called a hotel on wheels. The Pullman Company just thought of the porters as a piece of equipment, just like another button on a panel - the same as a light switch or a fan switch." Porters worked 400 hours a month or 11,000 miles, sometimes as much as 20 hours at a stretch. They were expected to arrive at work several hours early to prepare their car, on their own time; they were charged whenever their passengers stole a towel or a water pitcher. On overnight trips, they were allocated only three to four hours of sleep, and that was deducted from their pay. "It didn't pay a livable wage, but they made a living with the tips that they got, because the salary was nothing, " says Lyn Hughes of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum. The company expected its employees to pay for their own meals, supply their own uniforms and shoe polish used to shine passengers shoes daily. There was little job security and the Pullman Company inspectors were known for suspending porters for trivial reasons.
Contributions To The African American Class
Pullman porters are credited by many people as contributing to the development of the black middle class in America. In the late 19th century they were among the only people in their communities to travel extensively. As a result they became a conduit of new information and ideas from the wider world to their communities. Many Pullman porters supported community projects including schools, and saved rigorously in order to ensure that their children were able to obtain an education and thus better employment. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown were descendants of Pullman porters. Marshall was also a porter himself, as well as Malcolm X and the photo journalist Gordon Parks.
This Video Explains The Pullman Porters And Their Duties They Did and Interviews Of Former Pullman Porters.