CHAPTER 4Conductors and Porters

By 1863, the minutia of daily affairs absorbed Albert. He oversaw preparations for runs and often accompanied cars to their destinations. Serving as the Pullman business and ticket agent, he inspected and distributed supplies as they arrived for building and maintaining the rolling stock. When a car derailed near Franklin Grove, Illinois, he visited the site and directed repairs. He communicated with suppliers of components, including soliciting new devices and conveniences like oil lights to replace candles.¹ He also supervised a new company secretary, Charles W. Angell, hired in the spring of 1863.²

As busy as he was, Albert still found time to improve new Pullman offices at 200 Washington Street, Chicago, destined to become the first street with a tunnel under the Chicago River. He laid carpet, papered the walls, hung curtains, and replaced the stove.³ The Central Business District proved a congenial if dense and aesthetically unremarkable location in which to embark on his railroad career. Dominated by offices and shops, with a few manufacturing operations on the upper floors, the area facilitated business transactions and interpersonal relations, both of which Albert used to further the interests of the Pullman Company and his own entrepreneurial ambitions.⁴ Through all of this, he amassed a store of experience, knowledge, and contacts he would put to good use in organizing and hosting trial runs of new equipment and in shaping his own investment portfolio.

By this time the Civil War was entering its third year. The initial enthusiasm for fighting had dried up and Northern states instituted drafts. For members of the Pullman family this caused some understandable concern: after all, the six sons were all of age to serve. Royal Henry reported from Fulton, New York, about the “excitement” created by rumors that military conscription was imminent. The speculation led him to worry that “I may be drafted” and to write about paying a substitute to serve in his place.⁵ In the event, only one of the Pullman boys, Charley, joined Union forces. Posted to Memphis, Tennessee, he wrote of being “the only one that has the honor to represent the Pullman family in the Army.”⁶ The other brothers, though interested in Charley's destiny, paid scant attention to the war, electing to buy substitutes and continuing to conduct business as usual. The conflict provided a backdrop to their activities, but it did not shape their lives.

George returned permanently from Colorado in April 1863, ending his partnership with James Lyon. He decided to invest in—and become a director of—the Eagle Gold Company of New York. This firm, capitalized on paper at $1,000,000, operated a gold mine in Colorado and also brought George Pullman and William G. Angell—Charles Angell's brother—together. Within two years, the Pullman Company hired William Angell to work as a clerk in the office, where he referred building-raising inquiries to other firms and processed orders for supplies that Albert gave him.⁷ In 1864, George was elected to the board of directors of the Third National Bank of Chicago, gaining entrée to the business elite he needed to finance his ventures.⁸ Located on Lake Street near the future headquarters of the Pullman Company, and later to hire brother Frank Pullman as teller, this was one of the new banks founded under federal legislation passed as the Civil War raged and the North could reform the financial system without Southern interference. For George, the directorship proved a useful connection because the bank president, James H. Bowen, could send business Pullman's way.

The Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864 created the framework for a national banking system and indirectly influenced the futures of both Albert and George. The federal government gave itself the power to charter banks, issue banknotes, and inspect them through the office of the comptroller. To establish public faith at a time when people thought of banks as untrustworthy, the new national banks were required to keep a reserve equal to 15 percent of their total deposits and purchase at least $30,000 in federal bonds, which remained in the Treasury in Washington, DC. Meeting these stipulations gave national banks the authority to issue their own paper money.⁹ Not entirely foolproof, as the Panic of 1873 would demonstrate, the national banking system did attract investors and depositors because it added stability and safety to the financial apparatus of the United States. However, the high capital requirement meant state banks expanded after the war because they remained popular with small investors.¹⁰

Serving as a bank director gave George Pullman access to capital and financial expertise at a time when he needed both. It was common practice for directors to see “their” banks as a source of loans. Branch banking was illegal, which meant banks had to rely primarily on their immediate vicinities for customers. Many of those clients were the directors themselves, who became valuable because, as shareholders, they had a stake in the health of the bank and the trust of their fellow directors.¹¹ George required money to invest in building new sleeping cars and entered into a business network in which he could find it.

Albert's work in the office made him the public face of Pullman. For many people—legislators, suppliers, passengers, and journalists—he was the first Pullman employee they encountered. Callers at 200 Washington Street were frequent, though not all came to buy tickets, sign contracts, or pay their compliments. When Edward Talcott, general superintendent of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, dropped by, he did so to complain about the lack of spare sleeping cars. His railroad, the third to contract with Pullman, was an early customer, and Talcott demanded preferential treatment when the cars needed repairs or refurbishment, which they regularly did because the interiors were quite delicate, passengers were careless, and the rails were rough. The conversation had been so excoriating that, though Hayes wrote George that Albert would report on it “today,” it took the latter two days to work up the nerve to communicate with his brother. Talcott, Albert wrote, had complained that the Pullman cars were frequently in the shop for repair and often in need of a complete overhaul. Talcott demanded that they “be refitted in good style” for the sake of durability and that a replacement car always be made available.¹² This type of grievance would continue to dog the company, but the delicate interiors set Pullman cars apart. At the very least, complaints about the lack of car availability proved the existence of a demand for Pullman services, and the admonitions spurred Albert and George to improve car interiors.

A new Pullman & Field car earned extravagant reviews, some of which Albert probably wrote, in 1863. Reporting on a demonstration run to Joliet, Illinois, a journalist heaped praise on the polished walnut interior, commodious sofas and comfortable armchairs, kerosene lamps, excellent ventilation, and double-glazed windows, all of which made riding in the vehicle a novel experience. The Pullmans also simplified the mechanism for converting seats into bunks. They added a large main bedroom, leading to positive comparisons with “first class hotels.” To complete the picture, comfortable mattresses and daily changes of linen caused the excursionists to declare it “the most perfect car in every respect.”¹³

Albert's work for the sleeping-car business occupied him fully. When he bid on a building-lifting job on LaSalle Street and the contract went to John Coughlin, the foreman for Brown and Hollingsworth, Albert and George realized the moment had arrived to transition fully to constructing and operating sleeping cars. Albert stopped soliciting lifting work and no longer identified himself as a building raiser. The city directory for 1863 listed him as “sleeping car agent” for the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad and then, in 1864, as the agent for Pullman & Field. George, on the other hand, seems to have been hedging his bets, boarding at the Sherman House while working for “Pullman and Field sleeping cars” and for “Pullman & Moore, brick building raisers.”¹⁴

Albert also took responsibility for hiring personnel in George's absence. Each Pullman car had a conductor, hired and paid by Pullman, to collect the supplemental fare, help passengers, and keep a record of occupancy.¹⁵ Conductors, who carried themselves with “a semi-military air” blending “great pride and lowly humility,” rode in the cars from the very beginning, the first one traveling between Bloomington, Illinois, and Chicago in 1859. The conductor on that occasion was Jonathan L. Barnes.¹⁶ Irregular demand meant intermittent earnings, so Barnes quit the company after a year and Albert turned to relatives, first hiring cousin William Minton and then brother Frank. But earnings in the early years remained erratic, and when both men left because of the uncertain income Albert hired replacements.¹⁷

Pullman conductors’ duties grew more complex with the needs of passengers and the eccentricities of the cars. Conductors combined the roles of “railroad men, hotel clerks, physicians, diplomats, mathematicians and, in a pinch, bouncers.”¹⁸ They found themselves offering advice, conversing pleasantly, listening to complaints, providing medical assistance, and explaining the workings of the car.¹⁹ Soothing angry customers and making basic repairs also fell within the scope of their responsibilities, as did passenger safety. They became central to what George took to calling the “Pullman system,” by which employees carefully cleaned and maintained the cars, followed strict safety and operational rules, acted with decorum and discretion, and handled baggage and complaints efficiently.²⁰

Early company records make no mention of a feature the American public would come to associate with Pullman cars: Black porters. The first few operations carried only the conductor. Within a decade, however, every Pullman car carried two company employees, the conductor responsible for collecting or selling tickets, ensuring passenger safety, and purchasing supplies, and the porter, who greeted passengers, assisted them with boarding, ensured their comfort, and cleaned the cars. Porters helped passengers find their berths, made sure they got off at their appointed stops, shined shoes, and provided assistance as needed. They acceded to requests for open windows, cleaner air, more sheets, closed windows, and fewer sheets. They answered every request of the clients who rode in their cars, in addition to carrying and stowing baggage. The work of a porter did not end when the train reached its destination, however. Porters took linens to Pullman laundry facilities, cleaned car interiors, freshened pillows, beat mattresses, plumped cushions, stored supplies, and hung up anything movable. In good weather, they opened windows and doors to air out the cars, apparently assisted by cleaners who were both men and women.²¹

Historians remain uncertain about the date the first porter was hired, but it may have been as early as 1866. In that year, Thomas Durant, chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad, asked George Pullman to employ Eli Lafox so he could learn how to be a porter.²² The historian Stanley Buder asserts that porters were introduced into Pullman service in 1867, the year the company incorporated.²³ The first porter was possibly a formerly enslaved person, as were most of the first generation of porters. It is also possible the first porter had been a waiter, an occupation dominated at the time by Black men and connected to Pullman through caterers who supplied food for demonstration runs. In the absence of contemporary sources, much has been made of later reminiscences informed by George's mythmaking and by ignorance of the actual conditions of the company in its early years, including Albert's prominent role.²⁴ Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the traveling public took to calling porters “George” in honor of the man who had supposedly hired them all.²⁵

FIGURE 2. J. W. Mays, Pullman porter. Library of Congress.

The truth is that no one knows who made the decision to hire porters and to employ Black men in the demanding position in which they “catered to passenger whims with professional grace.”²⁶ Scholars generally accept the idea that George Pullman hired freed men as porters and assume (in this instance, with some justification) that Pullman porters had always been Black based on the fact that a racial division between porters and conductors clearly existed by 1869.²⁷ It also seems possible that, as historians have asserted, George Pullman hired emancipated Black men because he wanted to “consciously perpetuate the link between African Americans and slavery” and because they “embodied servility more than humanity” by their supposed invisibility, obedience, and obsequiousness.²⁸ This racist characterization was promulgated in 1917 by Pullman publicist Joseph Husband, who wrote of Black men that they were “trained as a race by years of personal service … and by nature adapted faithfully to perform their duties under circumstances which necessitate unfailing good nature, solicitude, and faithfulness.” In other words, they made good porters because of upbringing and experience.²⁹ This reading contradicts the Universalist outlook. Of overt racism among the Pullmans there is scant evidence, but racism in their lifetimes was endemic and socially acceptable.

While no firm evidence of either date or intent exists, in 1869 a Pullman porter by the name of David Carter was wrongly arrested on suspicion of stealing cash from the pocketbook of a passenger, having handed the item to a conductor after finding it on the train. No charges were brought and Carter was released. The newspaper account neither elaborates nor comments on the presence of a porter and a conductor, suggesting that the racial division of labor had, by then, become standard on Pullman cars.³⁰ What is clear is how dependent porters were on gratuities because of the low wages the company paid. As one contemporary wrote, passengers expected Pullman porters to supply “politeness, good humor, readiness to see what a gentleman or lady may want and, if possible accommodate them, shoe shining, brushing down … combined with a strict performance of his general duties of car service and, above all, the ability to keep wide awake when he is a living corpse from want of sleep.”³¹ Porters expected and needed tips in return.

Dividing labor along racial lines was as routine in railroading as it was in other industries. The historian Eric Arneson documents how ethnic and racial segregation was present from the very beginning of the industry in the 1820s. Railroads employed Blacks in carefully demarcated occupations, usually as “common laborers, service workers, and skilled workers in sharply defined job categories.” White workers systematically and legally denied them prestigious and high-earning positions, such as locomotive engineers or conductors. The construction gangs building lines were frequently drawn from distinctive and homogenous backgrounds, most famously in the case of the Chinese laborers hired to build the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento, California, into Utah. Contractors sometimes practiced segregation to maintain the peace between different ethnic groups working on the same line. When Irish and German labor gangs met at LaSalle, Illinois, on the Illinois Central Railroad, for example, old grievances and new fears escalated from threats and curses into a pitched battle.³²

Albert, who worked in the Pullman office more than George, would have been well placed to hire Pullman porters.³³ Biographer Liston Leyendecker acknowledges that George Pullman delegated “mundane day-to-day operations of the company” to Albert.³⁴ Though it is unclear why the Pullman Company deemed porters necessary, it is likely that conductors complained about the supposedly menial labor involved in cleaning the cars and the unpleasant work of handling passenger baggage and complaints. The first porters may indeed have been considered little more than carriers and cleaners, though the number of tasks for which they were responsible expanded.

While he seems not to have protested against the racial segregation of the labor force, Albert had relatively progressive attitudes toward Blacks for the times. His Universalist faith taught him to see all people as equal in the eyes of God. He does not seem to have been any more racist than his peers and may have been perhaps a little more tolerant given his Universalist upbringing. Around the time the Pullman Company probably hired its first porter, Albert employed and housed John Pendleton, a Black coachman, to drive his horse-drawn carriage.³⁵ Pendleton's experience as a domestic worker was unexceptional among Blacks in Chicago at the time, and he would no doubt have bestowed social standing on Albert while exciting little or no adverse comment among family and friends.³⁶ On an excursion to St. Louis in 1867, “some American citizens of African descent” served champagne to the invited passengers; Albert may well have hired these servers or at least approved of their employment by the unnamed caterer.³⁷ Albert and Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the president and a Pullman Company lawyer, together supported the education of Thomas L. Johnson, a freed slave.³⁸ So while Black porters became famous, we do not know why, when, or who hired the first one, though Albert is the most likely Pullman to have done so.

Relocating to Chicago opened a world of possibility to Albert. Observing George and learning on the job, Albert recognized that opportunities to build wealth could be found by creating business networks and gaining public prominence. Building lifting had brought his name into the newspapers, and his work for the young Pullman sleeping-car concern promised more of the same. Growth was not unimpeded, however. The most expensive car the brothers built to that point, an $18,000 vehicle of spectacular splendor, threatened to sink the young firm.