Pullman porter
Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers' baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths,and serve passengers. Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased its United States operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. The Pullman Company also operated sleeping cars in Mexico from the 1880s until November 13, 1970. The term "porter" has been superseded in modern American usage by "sleeping car attendant", with the former term being considered "somewhat derogatory".
Until the 1960s, Pullman porters in the United States were almost exclusively black, and have been widely credited with contributing to the development of the black middle class in the United States. Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, Pullman porters formed the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in 1925. The union was instrumental in the advancement of the Civil Rights Movement. Porters worked under the supervision of a Pullman conductor, who was invariably white. The Pullman Company employed Mexican men as porters in Mexico.
In addition to sleeping cars, Pullman also provided parlor cars and dining cars used by some railroads which did not operate their own; the dining cars were typically staffed with African-American cooks and waiters, under the supervision of a white steward: "With the advent of the dining car, it was no longer possible to have the conductor and porters do double duty: a dining car required a trained staff" and "depending on the train and the sophistication of the meals, a staff could consist of a dozen men." A small number of Asian Americans worked in Pullman dining cars following the 1950s.
Pullman also employed African-American maids on deluxe trains to care for women's needs, especially women with children; in 1926, Pullman employed about 200 maids and over 10,000 porters. Maids assisted ladies with bathing, gave manicures and dressed hair, sewed and pressed clothing, shined shoes, and helped care for children by playing games with them, and making sure their diapers are changed. The Central of Georgia Railway continued using this service as a selling point in their advertisements for the Nancy Hanks well into the 1950s.
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; he also had a very clear racial conception. He was aware that most Americans, unlike the wealthy, did not have personal servants in their homes. Pullman also knew the wealthy were accustomed to being served by a liveried waiter or butler, but to staff the Pullman cars with "properly humble" workers in uniform was something 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 start, Pullman's ads promoting his new sleeper service featured these porters. 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. According to the Museum of the American Railroad:
File:Pullman porter making an upper berth aboard the Capitol Limited bound for Chicago.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Pullman porter making an upper berth aboard the B&O Capitol Limited bound for Chicago
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, this could be seen as both an opportunity and a degrading experience, as porters were stereotyped as the servant class and took abuse from customers. Many passengers called every porter "George", as if he were George Pullman's "boy", a practice that was born in the South where slaves were named after their slavemasters/owners. The only ones who protested were other men named George, who founded the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George", or 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.
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:
The number of porters employed by railroads declined as sleeping car service dwindled in the 1960s as passenger numbers dwindled due to competition from auto and air travel, and sleeping car services were discontinued on many trains. By 1969, the ranks of the Pullman sleeping car porters had declined to 325 men with an average age of 63.
Duties and wages
A porter was expected to greet passengers, carry baggage, make up the sleeping berths, serve food and drinks brought from the dining car, shine shoes, and keep the cars tidy. He needed to be available night and day to wait on the passengers. He was expected to always smile; thus the porters often called the job, ironically, "miles of smiles".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 thought of the porters as a piece of equipment, just like another button on a panelthe 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 sleepand that was deducted from their pay.
A 1926 report by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, using the results of a survey by the Labor Bureau, Inc., stated that the minimum monthly wage for a regular porter was $72.50, with the average being $78.11, and tips on average amounting to $58.15; however, porters had to pay for their own meals, lodging, uniforms, and shoe-shine supplies, amounting to an average of $33.82 a month. Overtime pay of 60 cents per 100 miles was paid only for monthly service in excess of 11,000 miles, or about 400 hours of road service in a month. Maids received a minimum of $70 a month, with the same overtime provision, but they received fewer tips. By contrast, Pullman conductors, who already had a recognized union to bargain for them, earned a minimum $150 a month for 240 hours' work. The company offered a health, disability, and life insurance plan for $28 a year, and paid a pension of $18 a month to porters who reached age 70 and had at least 20 years of service. The BSCP booklet also reports that in 1925 the Pullman Company paid out over $10 million in dividends to stockholders from an aggregate net company income of more than $19 million.
"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, founder of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum. The porters were expected to pay for their own meals and uniforms and the company required them to pay for the 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.
Characterization
According to Larry Tye, who authored Rising from the Rails: The Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, George Pullman was aware that, as former chattel slaves, the men that he hired had already received the perfect training and "knew just how to take care of any whim that a customer had". Tye further explained that Pullman was aware that there was never a question that a traveler would be embarrassed by running into one of the porters and having them remember something that they had done during their trip that they did not want their wife or husband, perhaps, to know about.Black historian and journalist Thomas Fleming began his career as a bellhop and then spent five years as a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Fleming was the co-founder and executive editor of Northern California's largest weekly African-American newspaper, the Sun-Reporter. In a weekly series of articles entitled "Reflections on Black History", he wrote of the contradictions in the life of a Pullman porter:
In 2008, Amtrak became aware of The Pullman Porters National Historic Registry of African American Railroad Employees, a five-year research project conducted by Dr. Lyn Hughes, for the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, and published in 2007. Amtrak enlisted the APR Pullman Porter Museum, and partnered with them using the registry to locate and honor surviving porters through a series of regional ceremonies. Amtrak also attempted to locate additional survivors in order to interview them for a promotional project. A few remaining living former Pullman porters were found, all of whom were in their 90s or over 100 years old at that time. The project coordinator remarked, "Even today, observers are struck by how elegant the elderly men are. When we find them, they are dapper. They are men, even at this age, who wear suits and ties."