Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on Microfilm, 1925-1938
Collection Number: 5462 mf
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
Cornell University Library
DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY
Title:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on Microfilm, 1925-1938
Repository:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
Collection Number:
5462 mf
Abstract:
Largely intra-union correspondence with A. Philip Randolph and other national officers
regarding local organizing efforts, grievances, rival unionism, and other matters
of interest to the division. Originals in the Chicago Historical Society.
Creator:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Quanitities:
0.44 cubic feet
Language:
Collection material in English
The International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids was the first African
American labor union chartered by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Pullman
porters, dissatisfied with their treatment by the Chicago-based Pullman Company, sought
the assistance of A. Philip Randolph and others in organizing their own union, founded
in New York in 1925. The new union assigned Milton P. Webster to direct its organizing
in Chicago, home to the largest number of Pullman's 15,000 porters.
As a black organization, not just a union, the Brotherhood was an important early
component of the civil rights movement. Porters distributed the Chicago Defender after
that black newspaper was banned from mail distribution in many southern states. The
Pullman Company's recognition of the union in 1937 and the expansion of Brotherhood
membership and activities slowly fractured segregation within the AFL.
In 1978, the decline of the railroad industry led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters to merge with the much larger Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, Steamship Clerks,
Freight Handlers, Express, and Station Employees.
The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago
Largely intra-union correspondence with A. Philip Randolph and other national officers
regarding local organizing efforts, grievances, rival unionism, and other matters
of interest to the division. Originals in the Chicago Historical Society.
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference
archivist for access to these materials.
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and
Procedures for Document Use.
INFORMATION FOR USERS
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on Microfilm
#5462 mf. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University
Library.
Names:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Chicago Division
Subjects:
Railroads -- Employees -- Labor unions -- Illinois -- Chicago
Grievance arbitration -- Illinois -- Chicago
Sleeping cars (Railroads)
CONTAINER LIST
|
Container
|
Description
|
Date
|
|
| Reel 1 | 1 |
January, 1925 to December 1, 1927
|
1925-1927 |
|
Scope and Contents
positive
|
|||
| Reel 2 | 1 |
December 3, 1927 to September 7, 1932
|
1927-1932 |
|
Scope and Contents
positive
|
|||
| Reel 3 | 1 |
September 10, 1932 to December 31, 1938
|
1932-1938 |
|
Scope and Contents
positive
|
|||