Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters was the first national trade union for African Americans.
Standard BSCP histories focus on the men who built the union; few acknowledge
the important role of the Ladies' Auxiliary in shaping public debates
over black manhood and unionization, setting political agendas for the
black community, and crafting effective strategies to win racial and economic
justice.
The Ladies' Auxiliary, made
up of the wives, daughters, and sisters of Pullman porters, used the Brotherhood
to claim respectability and citizenship. Pullman maids, relegated to the
auxiliary, found their problems as working women neglected in favor of
the rhetoric of racial solidarity. The auxiliary actively educated other
women and children about the labor movement, staged consumer protests,
and organized local and national civil rights campaigns ranging from the
1941 March on Washington to school integration to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
A volume in the series
Women in American History, edited by Anne Firor Scott, Nancy A. Hewitt,
and Stephanie Shaw, and in the series The Working Class in American History,
edited by David Brody, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, and Sean
Wilentz
Synopsis
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first national trade union for African Americans. Standard BSCP histories focus on the men who built the union. Yet the union's Ladies' Auxiliary played an essential role in shaping public debates over black manhood and unionization, setting political agendas for the black community, and crafting effective strategies to win racial and economic justice.
Melinda Chateauvert explores the history of the Ladies' Auxiliary and the wives, daughters, and sisters of Pullman porters who made up its membership and used the union to claim respectability and citizenship. As she shows, the Auxiliary actively educated other women and children about the labor movement, staged consumer protests, and organized local and national civil rights campaigns ranging from the 1941 March on Washington to school integration to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Chateauvert also sheds light on the plight of Pullman maids, who--relegated to the Auxiliary--found their problems as working women neglected in favor of the rhetoric of racial solidarity.
Table of Contents
Introduction : the brotherhood story -- The case against Pullman -- It was the women who made the union : organizing the brotherhood -- Striking for the new manhood movement -- The first ladies' auxiliary to the first Negro trade union in the world -- A bigger and better ladies' auxiliary -- The duty of fair representation : brotherhood sisters and brothers -- Union wives, union homes -- We talked of democracy and learned it can be made to work : politics -- Disharmony in the official family : dissolution of the International Ladies' Auxiliary, 1956-57 -- Appendix : BSCP Ladies' Auxiliary membership, 1940-56.