Fans of American style football will watch the annual Superbowl game today as teams from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Greenbay, Wisconsin compete for a national trophy. ARTKBINETT social network for fine art collectors likes to share some of the cultural highlights of these communities. When visiting Greenbay, a visit to the National Railroad Museum is in order.
The Museum dates to 1956, when local individuals advanced the concept of a national museum dedicated to the American rail road history. Two years later, a joint resolution of Congress recognized the Museum as the National Railroad Museum.
Since then, the Museum has operated as a privately funded educational organization with a mission to foster an understanding of railroading and its significance to American Life. What began as an effort to acquire a single steam locomotive for a city park has grown into one of the largest rail museums in the nation. It now serves over 75,000 visitors annually.
The present photographic interactive exhibit, "Pullman Porters: From Service to Civil Rights", is at the nexus of three central historical narratives: railroads in United States History, and the labor and civil rights movements of the 20th century.
Using the latest digital technology as well as the most current methods of museum exhibition, the exhibit, Museum staff have developed a compelling exhibit that tells the story of a group of men who worked America’s rail lines for nearly 100 years.
The exhibit features a restored 1920s 10-1-2, Pullman sleeper car, the Lake Mitchell, supported by interpretive elements in and around the car.
Exhibit elements include a computer generated porter with interactive capabilities inside the car, original artifacts, touch screen computer kiosk offering curriculum relevant materials such as oral histories, and period music that illustrate the cultural, political and racial climate of the time.
Pullman porters were men hired by George Pullman to work on 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.
Prior to this time in the 1870s the concept of sleeping cars on railroads has not been widely developed. Pullman porters served American railroads for nearly 100 years from the 1870s until the late 1960s.
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 at that time.
By the 1960s between the decline of the passenger rail system and the cultural shifts in American society, the contribution of the Pullman porters became obscured, becoming for some in the African American community a symbol of subservience to cultural and economic domination.
Pullman porters were highly regarded for their attention to detail and the level of service they provided to people on their trains. The Louisville Medical Journal is quoted as saying that "hygiene in a Pullman sleeper was better than in nine of 10 American homes".
Starting in 1909, Pullman porters tried unsuccessfully to organize a labor union. Their break finally came in 1925, when A. Philip Randolph helped form the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Randolph and the BSCP were met with strong opposition from the Pullman Company but ultimately succeeded in forming the first all-black labor union in 1937.
Soon after winning the labor battle, Randolph and the porters shifted their attention to the struggle for civil rights, and remained at the forefront through the 1960s.
Pullman porters are credited by many people as contributing to the development of the black middle class in America.
In the late 19th century they were among the only people in their communities to travel extensively.
As a result they became a conduit of new information and ideas from the wider world to their communities.
Many Pullman porters saved rigorously in order to ensure that their children were able to obtain an education and thus better employment.
