Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on Microfilm
Collection Number: 5462 mf
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library
Title:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on Microfilm, 1925-1938
Collection Number:
5462 mf
Creator:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters
Quantity:
4 microfilm reels
Forms of Material:
Records (documents), microfilm.
Repository:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and
Archives, Cornell University Library
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.
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.
Names:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Chicago
Division.
Subjects:
Railroads -- Employees -- Labor unions --
Illinois -- Chicago.
Grievance arbitration -- Illinois -- Chicago.
Sleeping cars (Railroads)
Form and Genre Terms:
Records (documents)
Microfilm.
Access Restrictions:
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a
reference archivist for access to these materials.
Restrictions on Use:
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet
and Procedures for Document Use.
Cite As:
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chicago Division, Selected Papers on
Microfilm #5462 mf. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and
Archives, Cornell University Library.
|
Container
|
Description
|
Date
|
|
| Reel 1 | Item 1 | 1925-1927 | |
|
positive
|
|||
| Reel 2 | Item 1 | 1927-1932 | |
|
positive
|
|||
| Reel 3 | Item 1 | 1932-1938 | |
|
positive
|
|||