Watched this great movie last night. Its the story of A. Philip Randolph and the struggle to form the Pullman porters union. Excellent cast and shows the humiliations that porters went through in trying to do their jobs. Most of the train shots are well done but in the opening they show a Pullman train in the UK with a clearly English engine as power. Well worth a look, I took it out of my local library.
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A very interesting book on this same subject is Those Pullman Blues: An Oral History of the African American Railroad Attendant, by David D. Perata, 1996, Twayne's Oral History Series No. 22 (Simon & Schuster Macmillan). Studs Terkel popularized this genre of history writing starting in the 1960s and it's still a very effective approach, although not historically/academically rigorous.
It's always annoying when TV shows, even reasonably accurate ones from The History Channel, show stock footage of obviously European passenger trains as stand-ins for American railroad equipment. There must be enough stock US footage out there to make this unnecessary, but for some reason the producers apparently don't bother to do even cursory research (royalty issues?). But it guess in the end it just shows that the vast majority of the audience doesn't know the difference and doesn't care. Maybe I care too much?
Thanks for the book recommendation. Found used copies on Abe Books for under $11, will be ordering a copy.
Thanks for the heads up. I have never heard of that movie. It sounds interesting. I loved Andre Braugher. He was a great actor. He was so funny in Brooklyn 99. Gone way too soon.
Scotie -- I'm glad you found the book on Abe; I'm sure you will find to interesting and rewarding to read. I think I have a good history of the Pullman Company somewhere on my bookshelf, but I can't remember the title right off the top of my head. I'll look for it. George Pullman -- a little like Henry Ford -- was obsessed with being in control of all the details of his company, including the character and behavior of his employees.
Another great read on Pullman Porters is by Larry Tye, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class. With their travels the porters carried newspapers, magazines and information on the wider country back to their home towns. While not respected by many of the passengers they had the respect of their own communities.
Yes, that's the the book I was thinking of! Also a very good read, as you said.
I see this happen all the time, the producers get lazy. The stupid consumer will never know. That said still a great movie. Good find, thanks for sharing
I traveled cross-country regularly by Pullman with my parents in the late '40s through the '50s and although I was aware that the Pullman porters and the dining car waiters were exclusively Black gentlemen -- but never the Conductor or dining car Steward -- I did not understand until much later why that was, or the racial prejudice and complex history behind these facts.
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