rising from the rails the story of the pullman porter

That is precisely why George Pullman hired him. He was a phantom assistant who did not merit the dignity of a name or identity of any sort. The pioneering porter, in fact, was not expected to have human proportions at all, certainly none worthy of documenting. Barnes, who like all conductors was white and whose narrative is preserved in telling detail. Or even the name of the original conductor, Jonathan L.

Louis Railroad, or the provenance of the first three paying passengers, all from Bloomington, Illinois. But, curiously, it didn't destroy the names of those first two primitive Pullman cars back in 1859, remodeled day coaches 9 and 19 of the Chicago, Alton & St. Historians will say the reason is that a fire in Chicago destroyed the early archives of the Pullman Company. What is not known is his name, age, birthplace, date of employment, or just about anything else about him. That much is known about the first porter to work on George Mortimer Pullman's railroad sleeping cars. It was the only real traveling he would ever do. He was part chambermaid, part valet, shining shoes, nursing hangovers, tempering tempers, and performing other tasks that won tips and made him indispensable to the wealthy white travelers who snapped their fingers in the air when they needed him. He lit candles that illuminated the passenger carriage, stoked the pot-bellied Baker Heater, and turned down hinged berths that magically transformed the day coach into an overnight compartment. Having stepped out of the cotton fields barely two years before, he now was stepping onto one of the locomotives that had long symbolized freedom to slavehands across America. HE WAS A black man in a white jacket and sable hat.

Rising from the rails the story of the pullman porter