The company’s hiring policy hinged on stereotypes around the supposed “docility” of Southern men when compared with their Northern and Western counterparts and, in its early days, extended this theory to include formerly enslaved workers out of the assumption that they would be instinctively more deferential and accustomed to menial labor. The company also specifically placed a premium on dark-skinned men as a means of enforcing the color line between servant and served. No porter would ever be mistaken for a passenger on Pullman’s watch or, worse, become too friendly with a passenger’s wife.
