Pacific Railway Poster, c. 1900
This color lithograph emphasized the family atmosphere of the railroad’s Pullman Palace Dining Cars. Pullman, a Chicago-based manufacturer, became a household name by providing high-class sleeping and dining cars to the nation’s railroads. Such advertisements invited prosperous Americans to make themselves “at home” in public, commercial spaces that were safe and comfortable for respectable women and children. Note that all the passengers are white, and the waiters black. Work as a railroad waiter or porter was one of the better-paid, more prestigious jobs available to African American men. Demands for segregated rail cars often focused on the alleged threat that black men might pose to white women — while, at the same time, such men and women regularly came in contact as railroad employees and passengers. Wisconsin Historical Society.