Editing Pullman porter (section)

==History==
[[File:Pullman dining car 1894.jpg|thumb|Pullman advertising poster, 1894, depicting a Pullman waiter]]

Prior to the 1860s, the concept of [[sleeping car]]s 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 [[American Civil War|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.<ref name=autogenerated3>{{cite web |first=Lawrence |last=Tye |url=http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/choosing-servility-staff-americas-trains |title=Choosing Servility To Staff America's Trains| website=Alicia Patterson Foundation |date=2011-05-05 |access-date=2013-07-19 |archive-date=2013-09-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053613/http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/choosing-servility-staff-americas-trains |url-status=dead}}</ref> He was aware that most Americans, unlike the wealthy, did not have personal servants in their homes.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} Pullman also knew the wealthy were accustomed to being served by a [[livery|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.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} Hence, part of the appeal of traveling on sleeping cars was, in a sense, to have an [[upper class]] experience.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

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 [[Porter (carrier)|Red Caps]] (railway station porters).<ref name="autogenerated3"/> According to the Museum of the American Railroad:

{{blockquote|text=The Pullman Company was a separate business from the railroad lines. It owned and operated sleeping cars that were attached to most long-distance passenger trains. Pullman was essentially a chain of hotels on wheels ... Pullman provided a Porter (attendant) that prepared the beds in the evening and made them in the morning. Porters attended to additional needs such as room service from the dining car, sending and receiving telegrams, shining shoes, and valet service.<ref name="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 [[Baltimore and Ohio Railroad|B&O]] ''[[Capitol Limited (B&O train)|Capitol Limited]]'' bound for Chicago]]

{{anchor|George}}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 "boy" (servant), 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.<ref name=autogenerated3 /> 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.''<ref>{{cite web| last=Ito| first=Gail Arlene| date=2008-04-16| title=Stanley G. Grizzle (1918– )| website=The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed| url=https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/grizzle-stanley-g-1918/| access-date=2021-02-26| language=en-US| archive-date=2021-02-15| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210215031649/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/grizzle-stanley-g-1918/| url-status=live}}</ref>

Porters were not paid a [[Living wage|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:

{{blockquote|text=One of the most remarkable stories I liked hearing about was how when [[Jackie Gleason]] would ride ... all the porters wanted to be on that run. 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.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite web |url=http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,41 |title=Pullman Porters, The: From Servitude to Civil Rights |website=WTTW: Chicago Stories |access-date=2013-07-19 |archive-date=2013-09-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909171644/http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,41 |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

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.<ref name="Meriden Journal">{{cite news|title=The Sad Plight of Passenger Service| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N69IAAAAIBAJ&pg=1433,367540&dq=pullman+porters+phased+out&hl=en| access-date=14 November 2013|newspaper=The Meriden Journal| date=6 January 1969| archive-date=18 May 2022| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220518010809/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N69IAAAAIBAJ&pg=1433,367540&dq=pullman+porters+phased+out&hl=en| url-status=live}}</ref>