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Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class
by
Larry Tye
An engaging social history that reveals the critical role Pullman porters played in the struggle for African American civil rights
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 irresistible. They quickly signed up to s...more
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 irresistible. They quickly signed up to s...more
Hardcover, 314 pages
Published
July 6th 2004
by Henry Holt & Company
(first published 2004)
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Community Reviews
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Really enjoyed this book. I thought it was well researched, particularly in light of the difficulty in finding living Pullman Porters and setting up opportunities for oral testimony/history with them. Its one of the particular joys of reading a history book when it covers something that is seemingly forgotten, and may only get a sentence, if that, in a normal history textbook. The transition of African-Americans who were slaves in the South to working on these luxury sleeping cars is fascinat...more
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My great-grandfather, who died long before I was born, was a Pullman Porter. I was so happy to find a book dedicated to the lives of these upstanding men, many of whom were the first to leave the farms in the South and went on to help create the black middle class. Five stars!
Terrific...Tye is a wonderful social historian. The Pullman porters were an important if overlooked force for change. So glad I read this. (Mary: the guy who set the fire in Loving Frank had been a Pullman porter and got me interested in their story).
I just couldn't get into this book. I heard a great review/story the other day about the book on NPR and went in w/ high hopes, but it just didn't pan out quick enough for me.
This is a must read for anyone interested in one of the great labor movements in U.S. History.
Great history and perspective on the employment of blacks by the Pullman Train company.
A very interesting topic but it lost my attention for long stretches at a time.
This book is good to very good but not great. It is a wonderful set of anecdotes about the resilience of Black people (and Black men in particular) in the face of very difficult circumstances. These stories of persecution and resilience are inspiring but there did not seem to be a realized thesis, that being that these men laid the foundation for the mondern civil rights movement. I would have liked to have seen more stories about the descendants of these Pullman porters..but it was still a good...more
*SNORE*
great content. lullaby writing. if you are a history buff and have some no-doze or an unlimited supply of coffee on hand, have at it. otherwise, give to a friend with insomnia and they will be grateful to you for the instant cure.
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okay, so far, not horrible. but it still feels like homework.
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i really don't want to read this, but it's the club's selection for januar...more
great content. lullaby writing. if you are a history buff and have some no-doze or an unlimited supply of coffee on hand, have at it. otherwise, give to a friend with insomnia and they will be grateful to you for the instant cure.
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okay, so far, not horrible. but it still feels like homework.
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i really don't want to read this, but it's the club's selection for januar...more
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Given that this book is written when so many Pullman porters are no longer alive, this book seems to be as factual an account as possible. Fascinating, heartrending, uplifting. Slavery may technically have ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, but George Pullman found his own special way to keep it going. And yet it ended up benefiting so many people. A conundrum of a book, and an important piece of American history.
Although this book was not exactly riveting, it was filled with interesting information about the Pullman company and Porters and their ties to the civil rights movement.
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It probably took me over a month to finish this book. It nearly put me to sleep every time I picked it up. I found myself wanting to stop reading it many times but for some reason it kept calling me back. In the end it was a very intriguing and I feel like I learned a lot from it. I would only reccommend this book to someone who is interested in the history of the Pullman Porters or the Railways.
With any historical nonfiction, those of us who aren't historians ourselves sort of have to trust that it's an equitable treatment of the subject. I really hope this is because I found it fascinating and well-written.
Excellent research done just in time to catch the few primary sources left. the romance of trains, the unchivalrous codes of the past, "masters" of the universe & more
A tough read, but really inetersting history.
Myrriam
marked it as to-read
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