Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. - Review - book reviews

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by James M. Beeby

Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. By Melinda Chateauvert (Urbana and Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1998. xiv plus 267pp. $46.95/cloth $19.95/paperback).

Melinda Chateauvert's excellent book on the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), sets new standards for studies in labor history, women's history, and African American society. In Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Chateauvert unearths an almost forgotten topic--black women in the BSCP--that historians have for too long ignored. By placing gender at the center of her analysis, Chateauvert asks new and provocative questions about the BSCP, the American labor movement, and African American culture on the eve of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Chateauvert carries out a chronological study of the BSCP, detailing its rise and its grievances against the Pullman company, the height of the BSCP'S power in the 1940s, and its eventual decline in the mid-1950s. This is familiar territory for historians. However, Chateauvert takes BSCP history to another dimension by analyzing the pivotal role played by the wives and sisters of the Pullman porters in building and sustaining the BSCP into the first national trade union for African Americans. In doing so Chateauvert implodes the public and private spheres of African American life, rendering the traditional distinctions between social and political/labor history impractical and simplistic.

Chateauvert seamlessly interweaves her gender analysis in each chapter. In focusing on key African American women, such as President Halena Wilson, the Black Worker newspaper, and women's club meetings, she has produced a nuanced study that is sensitive to both time and locality. Chateauvert argues that racism, male trade union ideology, the notion of domesticity and the family, as well as the need for African American husbands and fathers to assert their masculinity, precluded women's activities in the BSCP. Despite this, the Ladies' Auxiliary organized and educated women in the importance of the union in their lives. What makes Chateauvert's work inspiring are the voices of the women as the grass roots, which she highlights through her wonderful use of oral history, minutes of club meetings, and letters to the Black Worker. Chateauvert also delineates the various ideological viewpoints of the women in the auxiliary, the tensions between the older and younger generation, and the fact that Pullman porter wiv es were seen as working class by whites, but as middle class by African Americans. By illuminating the complexity of the various positions taken by women in the Auxiliary, in terms of organization, education, and the relationship between men and women within the movement and at home, Chateauvert makes clear the reciprocal relationship between the public and private sphere.

Chateauvert's most stimulating chapters focus on the foundation and growth of the Ladies' Auxiliary, and its quest for fair representation within the BSCP. The strength of character of the women, their organizational ability, and the time they devoted to the cause make this book compelling reading. In a key chapter on union wives and union families, Chateauvert pieces together the complex intersections of race, class, and gender within union households. She concludes: "The union wife used her position to expand the power of the trade union movement. She understood that the household budget came from union labor, and returned that money to labor." (p. 138) Thus, union women purchased union-made commodities, set up co-operatives, and taught their children the value of work and the need for civil rights. However, as standards of living increased for BSCP's families, tensions over class position eventually undermined the ability of the older, trade union-oriented members to recruit younger, civil rights-oriented women. Ultimately, Chateauvert argues: "The auxiliary, caught between politicized members interested in the civil rights movement and those enjoying the status of a high standard of living, failed to attract new members." (p. 187) New organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality, and new leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., seemed to better address African American women's concerns.

There is much to admire in this work, especially the agency and prominence of African American women, which appear throughout the book. Indeed, Chateauvert's analysis of the tensions and strains between the all-male leadership of the BSCP and women's auxiliary is first rate. Refusing to accept gender history as merely the study of women, Chateauvert correctly argues that manliness is a social construction, and throughout her book, she illustrates with good effect the subtle ways black male identity was constructed through the activities of the BSCP and the Ladies' Auxiliary. There are however, a few questions left unanswered. While acknowledging differences among localities, Chateauvert seems to treat the South quite sparingly in her analysis. This seems a missed opportunity. Jim Crowism was at its height in the South. What role did the BSCP and the Ladies' Auxiliary play in the South between 1941 and 1956 to gain first-class citizenship rights? In addition, areas of Ladies' Auxiliary strength, such as San F rancisco, Detroit and Washington D.C. do not figure very prominently in Chateauvert's narrative. This omission maybe due to the lack of sources, but these areas merit attention. Coupled with this is another question. Chateauvert successfully reconfigures social and political relations, but she also mentions the tension between African American maids and Asian American maids, particularly on the West Coast. This discussion is very brief and merits more elaboration to further support Chateauvert's assertion of the social construction of race and gender. Why did African American women fail to work across race lines, in light of class and gender intersections, and instead view other women of color so suspiciously? Also, what role did Asian American women play in the union movement?