> Exhibits on segregation and/or the
> employment of blacks by Pullman just might
> coax a few black folks to a museum over
> another entertainment venue. You have to be
> careful, however, because I've also found
> that many blacks are hypersensitive. If they
> perceive the exhibit as a token, it'll
> actually be worse than not telling the story
> at all.

To do an exhibit that doesn't fall into the "token" category, I would think it would be essential to enlist the help of someone from the African American community, preferably a historian or educator familiar with the topic. How else could you get the right perspective?
It would be interesting to know how many African Americans visit this site and whether one would be interested in aiding a museum to create a proper, respectful display/exhibit; or who could point any museum, so inclined, to such a person.



hankmorris@earthlink.net

> To do an exhibit that doesn't fall into the
> "token" category, I would think it
> would be essential to enlist the help of
> someone from the African American community,
> preferably a historian or educator familiar
> with the topic. How else could you get the
> right perspective?

The best assistance I have found in Savannah was from a black history professor at one of the local historically black colleges. Don't think that Winnsboro has a university, but it isn't far from Columbia where such resources are likely to be found.

Please note here that Matt and Company at SCRM have an unlimited supply of critical operating issues to deal with on a priority basis, which tends to render interpretive improvement to a second place. It is nice to know that some efforts to plan for it are being made.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> As long as we have been talking about race
> and railroads, it's worth mentioning that
> many (I cannot to say all) Southern
> railroads owned or leased slaves at one time
> or another. Of the three men injured by the
> explosion of Best Friend of Charleston's
> boiler, two were slaves, leased by the
> railroad. One of them died of his injuries.
> The South Carolina Canal & Rail Road
> Company listed over 100 slaves as a loss on
> their books during the year 1865, due to
> emancipation.

I'd be interested to know where you got the information above, particulary the part about the slave dying from his injuries. I've never seen a reference to anything that happened after the day of the explosion. There is (or was) a book online that was written in the 1800s, using letters from many of the pioneers of American railroading. My web essay (link below) on the BFOC is largely based on this book. The engineer's name is mentioned (Nicholos Darnell), but not the names of the two slaves. One of these days, I'd like to turn my Web essay into an exhibit (when those, as Dave put it, "critical operating issues" -- a.k.a. bad track and no shop building -- are finally resolved).

Another little-known fact about the BFOC -- it had no brakes. The SCC&RR Co.'s concept of "brakes" was a gang of slaves running out and grabbing the train to bring it to a stop. (shudder!)

The Best Friend of Charleston
mconrad@compuzone.net

Wesley ( and others),

A very significant issue for railway museums
to handle as they make the transition from
amusement park ride to serious educators and
interpreters of social history.

I'm sorry to say that at Branford (Shore Line
Trolley) Museum we don't really address this
at all. Fred mentioned the sign in our Atlanta
car but that was an exception: we don't display
that sign and we don't have an interpretive plan
for whenever New Orleans 850 is restored and
used in visitor service.

I've heard (but perhaps someone with first-hand
experience will chime in) that Penn. Trolley
Museum ("Arden") interprets segregation in
a novel manner that works well with young
audiences, in which they segregate seating based
on some arbitrary attribute such as the child's
hair color.

No matter how one does it, someone is likely to
get mad. Don't go it alone: partner with
a reputable organization. Someone suggested
NAACP or a local college with expertise in
this area of history. Having a good partner
increases the chances of interpreting in
a fair, non-inflammatory manner. Also, most
railway museums are staffed predominantly by
white males. We need credibility.

webmaster@bera.org

> I'd be interested to know where you got the
> information above, particulary the part
> about the slave dying from his injuries.

My notes are at home, but I believe this was from Samuel M. Derrick's 1930 "History of South Carolina Railroad". Derrick quotes a newspaper report which gives the engineer's name and his injuries (not serious), and names the owners of the other two injured men. One had a broken thigh and the other had a head injury(?).

This article did not mention a that one of the two died, although I have seen this mentioned in other accounts. A broken thigh is a very serious injury, and given the limitations of medical care in the 1830s, I wonder if this man could have survived.

I think the 1865 slave roster is in this book too.

tr2manz@frontiernet.net

At Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, three of the passenger coaches in the passenger car collection are partitioned "Jim Crow" coaches. The restoration practice at TVRM holds that the passenger cars should be restored to their original appearance if possible or a historically appropriate appearance for the era in which the car was built or modernized.

Two "Jim Crow" cars (906 and 907) are in service. The 907 was the first of the two to be restored and lost its partition while still in railroad service. The 906 still has its partition and the interior was restored to its segregation era appearance, complete with the "White" and "Colored" signs. Both cars have interpretive signs explaining the historical origin of "Jim Crow" and the segregation of races on railroad passenger trains. Much of the feedback that we receive from black patrons who ride on those cars, most often the 906, is favorable. It gives parents and grandparents who lived through segregation and desegregation something that their children or grandchildren can touch and experiance firsthand.



awalker2002@comcast.net

> My notes are at home, but I believe this was
> from Samuel M. Derrick's 1930 "History
> of South Carolina Railroad". Derrick
> quotes a newspaper report which gives the
> engineer's name and his injuries (not
> serious), and names the owners of the other
> two injured men. One had a broken thigh and
> the other had a head injury(?).

> This article did not mention a that one of
> the two died, although I have seen this
> mentioned in other accounts. A broken thigh
> is a very serious injury, and given the
> limitations of medical care in the 1830s, I
> wonder if this man could have survived.

> I think the 1865 slave roster is in this
> book too.

That more or less jives with Brown's book. He reports that one slave had a broken thigh and that the other had a nasty cut on the chest. Darnell was scalded.

I guess the ideal way to find out would be to take a trip to Charleston and get a copy of the June 18, 1830 Post & Courier. Since the explosion was on the 17th that ought to be the right issue.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum

mconrad@compuzone.net

> ...I guess the ideal way to find out would be
> to take a trip to Charleston and get a copy
> of the June 18, 1830 Post & Courier...

Excellent idea - can you get right on it? ;-) I would really like to know if anything more was reported about the incident.

tr2manz@frontiernet.net

> Excellent idea - can you get right on it?
> ;-) I would really like to know if anything
> more was reported about the incident.

Been meaning to get with Dave and take the two stationary steam engines and boiler from the sawmill model down to Savannah. Charleston's on the way, sort of. What with having a tree fall on my roof a couple weeks ago and having taken over the grass mowing at SCRM (the regular volunteer dropped it unexpectedly), I'm sort of busy right now. Once I get the tree cleaned up (I'm about to tackle the main trunk) I'll probably take a weekend and combine both missions.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum

mconrad@compuzone.net

My cynical suggestion is that it was used as the 2nd section of the "Panama" and combined with the next train out, to preserve the fiction that you weren't really being "bumped". Maybe there was a time when it was the colored portion of the main section of the "Panama"? Are the accommodations and fittings in any way inferior to other 1st class cars?

When I was working at Queen Anne's Railroad, we operated an ex-N&W combine, and it had it's glass Jim Crow partition intact, as well as the laws of Virginia posted which among other things stated that you must spit in the spittoon provided.

One very hot, HOT, summer Sunday, we had a full train except for that car, which hadn't been opened as we didn't expect to have to use it. At the last minute before departure, two church vans pulled into the parking lot, and they were full of folks from a local black church, still in their "church" clothes. They came to ride.

Our trainman immediately opened the N&W car, and begain to open the windows in it. It must have been 130 degrees in the car. The conductor and I greeted these folks as they boarded.

The trainman yelled for me to come help with a few of the sticky windows (I'm sure none of you have had to deal with old passenger car windows?). After opening the last few windows, I found myself as the only white person in a car full of black folks. It was at that time an elderly grey haired lady asked me a question.

She was wearing a beautiful dress and hat, and was fanning herself with a nice fan. She (along with several others) was sitting in the "white" section of the car, as the car was full. She pointed to the glass partition and said "Do you know what that glass wall is?" With every eye on me, I answered "Yes, ma'am". She said "what is it?" with the glean in her eye that she knew exactly what it was. I replied "That is a Jim Crow partition, which separated this coach into black and white sections. Jim Crow laws were common in the south which provided separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites".

She smiled and kept fanning herself, and said "You know those facilities were NEVER equal, but I want you to know that you're doing a good job here, because today is the first day in my life I've ever been able to sit in the white section, and it's just as hot over here!"

I would think it would be essential to enlist the help of someone from the African American community, preferably a historian or educator familiar with the topic. How else could you get the right perspective?

Well, actually, the best thing would be to have somebody WHO ACTUALLY LIVED THROUGH and EXPERIENCED through this abomination record their experiences so that people now and the future could have first person testimony, because such people are passing on, quickly, (keep in mind The Supreme Court, in Irene Morgan v. Virginia ruled segregation in interstate transportation to be unconstitutional, and that was 1946).

In the absence of that personal experience, to suggest that by virtue of skin color alone an individual offers visitors a superior interpretation of that era-is just another demeaning form of prejudice, especially if you call some organization asking, "hey could you send somebody down to speak about Jim Crow on railroads" -(translation, we don't have anybody here of African descent here but we really need some credibility because we really are immersed in political correctness).

If you wish to think like this, be sure all of your engineers have ancestors that worked on the railroad, because otherwise, they really won't be able to run the engine without that intangible connection to the past.

So much for the content of a person's character.

Some years back, one of my coworkers was a black woman from Virginia; her husband was a long-time railroad employee (at this time a safety supervisor), also from the same town on the Chesapeake & Ohio. I recall she had a beautiful voice, a wonderful example of a Virginia accent. I wish I could have heard her in her church choir; she would have sounded lovely there. Both are now long retired from their respective jobs, and have since returned to Virginia, and the last I heard they were living in the Williamsburg area.

She recalled "Jim Crow" or segregation as practiced on the C&O. As she and her husband recalled it, and as I remember them telling me about it, segregation was in effect in Virginia, but not in West Virginia. The railroad dealt with this by having a three-sided sign in its passenger cars; one side said "Whites Only," a second side said "Colored Only," and the third side said "No Smoking."

If you were a black person getting on the train in Richmond or Charlottesville or Clifton Forge, you would go to a car with a sign reading "Colored Only;" these were usually right behind the head-end stuff. You were restricted to these cars until you got to White Sulfur Springs, which was the first stop in West Virginia. At White Sulfur, the conductor or trainman came through and "flipped the sign" to the "No Smoking" side, and then you could go anywhere in the train you wished to go, such as to the dining car.

This was in effect until you reached Huntington or Kenova. Beyond those points, the railroad ran in Kentucky, and segregation was in effect there. This meant that somewhere before these last stops in West Virginia, the conductor or trainman had to make sure any colored passengers were back in the forward cars, and any white people who might have been forward were shooed out to cars further back. As the train crossed into Kentucky, the conductor again "flipped the sign" to the appropriate (for Kentucky) "Colored Only" or "Whites Only" side. This was in effect until the train crossed into Ohio at either Limeville (enroute to Columbus) or Cincinnatti, and then the signs got flipped again to "No Smoking."

I couldn't help but laugh at this, and exclaim how this was "plumb ridiculous." Her comment was it was so strange for black people to work in the Pullman cars and the diners, but those same people couldn't ride in those cars as passengers in Virginia and Kentucky and other places.

I don't know how well it would go over, but I can't help but think one should be able to play or reenact this as comedy, illustrating the folly of that thing from the bad old days.

The book "C&O Power" by Phil Shuster, Gene Huddleston, and Al Staufer, has several photos in it of locomotives in Virginia, and this couple recognized at least one person in the photos as a next-door neighbor from when they were in Virginia! There is also a photo in there of a 2-8-2, in polished brass and gleaming black (prewar era), with what strongly looks like a black man on the right-hand side. I said I thought it had not been possible for black men to be engineers in this time. The gentleman half of this couple said that was true, black men could only be firemen in road service, but there were black hostlers to move the engines around servicing facilities, and he thought that was who and what the photographer caught in the 1930s.

Harriet Tubman in her autobiography remembered that South Carolina didn't impose segregation on the South Carolina Railroad & Canal Company's Charleston & Hamburg RR until after it was sold into private hands. The legislature was not about to waste tax moneys on the practice!
Dallas, Tex. had segregated streamlined trolley cars, which implies that the PRR
may have had to contend with the practice on the Penn-Texas train. The PRR's
South Wind train, Chicago - Florida, had to contend. A passenger told me the PRR
didn't enforce the practice, and so the inferior "Colored" sections of the
coaches supplied by the other railroads were empty North of Louisville.

"Harriet Tubman in her autobiography remembered that South Carolina didn't impose segregation on the South Carolina Railroad & Canal Company's Charleston & Hamburg RR until after it was sold into private hands. The legislature was not about to waste tax moneys on the practice!"--Jim Boylan

Ho, ho, ho, ho!! Typical politicians!!

For better or worse, I'm afraid we don't change too much. . .