Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class


<br> <b>"A lively and engaging chronicle that adds yet another dimension to the historical record."-The Boston Globe</b> <p>When George Pullman began recruiting Southern blacks as porters in his luxurious new sleeping cars, the former slaves suffering under Jim Crow laws found his offer of a steady job and worldly experience irresistable. They quickly signed up to serve as maid, waiter, concierge, nanny, and occasionally doctor and undertaker to cars full of white passengers, making the Pullman Company the largest employer of African Americans in the country by the 1920s.</p> <p>Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter and the vital cultural, political, and economic roles they played as forerunners of the modern black middle class. <i>Rising from the Rails</i> provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.<br> </p>

Author(s): Larry Tye  

ISBN 10: 0805078509
ISBN 13: 9780805078503
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Publication: June 2005
Edition: Reprint
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Other books by Larry Tye

1. Bobby Kennedy
2. Father of Spin Paperback (September 2002)
3. Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays And the Birth of Public Relations
4. Home Lands: Portrait of the New Jewish Diaspora Hardcover (2001/09/01)
5. Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora Paperback (2002/09/01)
6. Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora (9/1/2002)
7. Rising from the rails Hardcover (2004/06/15)
8. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend Paperback (May 2010)
9. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend MP3 Book (June 2009)
10. Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero Paperback (5/21/2013)
11. The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Realtions Hardcover (1998/08/01)

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