Pullman Porter's Blanket
date: label: date made
content: 1910
name: label: user
content: Pullman Palace Car Company
notes: label: Description
content: Part of a Pullman porter's job was to make up the sleeping berths in his assigned sleeping car, and to provide extra blankets to passengers requesting them. The standard Pullman blanket in the 20th century was dyed a salmon color, which became almost a trademark of the company. When a blanket became worn or damaged in service, it was assigned to those blankets reserved for porters' use.
label: Description
content: This wool blanket, made in 1910, was used by African American railroad porters. According to Pullman service rules, a porter's blanket was never to be given to a passenger. Ostensibly to avoid mixing these with the passengers' blankets, the porters' blankets were dyed blue. This was to comply with statutes in the South that dealt with the segregation of blacks and whites. The Pullman service rules were applied nationwide throughout the Pullman system, not just in the South. Dyeing the blanket blue made it easy to tell which blankets were used by passengers and which blankets were used by the African American porters and attendants. A dyed-blue Pullman blanket is today extremely rare, given its negative racial symbolism.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Transportation, Railroad
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content: Work
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content: America on the Move
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content: Transportation
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content: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Arthur D. Dubin
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1986.0133.01
label: accession number
content: 1986.0133
label: catalog number
content: 1986.0133.01
label: catalog number
content: 86.0133.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: blanket
label: Other Terms
content: blanket; Rail
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: wool (overall material)