• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Chris Pullman

Chaos On An Adirondack Train: The Case Against Pullman Porter Smith

November 10, 2014 by Chris Pullman Leave a Comment

Pullman Porter Helping Woman circa 1880sWhen the night train to Montreal set out from Utica on April 29, 1931, James E. Smith had already been toiling over the needs and wants of his passengers for many hours.  At 29 years old, Smith had been a Pullman porter for about three years.  He had done a stint in Pennsylvania and now was employed on the New York Central Railroad.

The experience of the Pullman porter was both uncommon yet ordinary.  The Pullman Palace Car company hired black men almost exclusively as porters. This practice began under the direction of the founder of the company, George Pullman, after the Civil War. On board a luxurious and comfortable Pullman Car, Pullman porters were expected to be the ideal servants to their well off white passengers. [Read more…] about Chaos On An Adirondack Train: The Case Against Pullman Porter Smith

Filed Under: History, Adirondacks & NNY Tagged With: Adirondacks, Black History, Civil Rights, Crime and Justice, Labor History, Legal History, New York Central RR, Oneida County, Political History, Transportation History

Primary Sidebar

Support Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Evan Barnett on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Evan Barnett on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Eva Barnett on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • ARNOLD on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Kim Campbell on Civil War Albany Rises To Action
  • Dave Waite on Alfred Billings Street: Albany’s 19th Century State Poet
  • Filly on Albany’s Ira Harris: From Rights Advocate to Lincoln’s Assassination
  • Laura on In Haverstraw, The House That Inspired Hitchcock
  • N. Couture on Mary Zawacki On Mohawk River History (The Historians Podcast)
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Poetry: Local But Epic

Recent New York Books

The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton
vintage babes of broadway book
Mission Begin With Blood
Special Delivery book
killing time in the catskills
the soft city book
occupied america
stewards of the water
off the northway

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide