Porters rode into railroad history
Eugene Bowser recalls the time department store heir and publisher Marshall Field III gave him a $2 tip. For a railroad club car attendant making about $18 a month in salary around 1950, it was quite a bonus.
Bowser never made a lot of money, but at 93, he's active and alert, one of a select brotherhood who forged a special chapter in American history.
On Saturday, Bowser will join five other surviving porters who will be feted by Amtrak during a special National Train Day celebration at Chicago's Union Station.
Bowser and the others were among the thousands of black men who were proud members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, working the Pullman cars during the nation's great era of passenger railroads in the early to mid-20th Century.
Read entire article at Chicago Tribune
Bowser never made a lot of money, but at 93, he's active and alert, one of a select brotherhood who forged a special chapter in American history.
On Saturday, Bowser will join five other surviving porters who will be feted by Amtrak during a special National Train Day celebration at Chicago's Union Station.
Bowser and the others were among the thousands of black men who were proud members of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, working the Pullman cars during the nation's great era of passenger railroads in the early to mid-20th Century.