It owned and operated sleeping cars that were attached to most long-distance passenger trains. The Pullman Company was a separate business from the railroad lines. According to the Museum of the American Railroad: 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). įrom the start, Pullman's ads promoting his new sleeper service featured these porters. Hence, part of the appeal of traveling on sleeping cars was, in a sense, to have an upper class experience. 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. He was aware that most Americans, unlike the wealthy, did not have personal servants in their homes. 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. George Pullman pioneered sleeping accommodations on trains, and by the late 1860s, he was hiring only African-Americans to serve as porters. Prior to the 1860s, the concept of sleeping cars on railroads had not been widely developed. Pullman advertising poster, 1894, depicting a Pullman waiter The Central of Georgia Railroad continued using this service as a selling point in their advertisements for the Nancy Hanks well into the 1950s. Maids assisted ladies with bathing, gave manicures and dressed hair, sewed and pressed clothing, shined shoes, and helped care for children. 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. In addition to sleeping cars, Pullman also provided parlor cars and dining cars used by some railroads that 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." Porters worked under the supervision of a Pullman conductor (distinct from the railroad's own conductor in overall charge of the train), who was invariably white. The union was instrumental in the advancement of the Civil Rights Movement. Philip Randolph, Pullman porters formed the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. Until the 1960s, Pullman porters were exclusively black, and have been widely credited with contributing to the development of the black middle class in America. The term "porter" has been superseded in modern American usage by "sleeping car attendant", with the former term being considered "somewhat derogatory". Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. Their job was to carry passengers’ baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths, and serve passengers. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. A Pullman porter assisting a passenger with her luggage
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