This picture is a color lithograph advertisement from 1894, showing the interior of a Pullman dining car belonging to the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway. It depicts two men seated at a table being served by an African-American Pullman porter. Visible through the window is the Mosler Safe Works in Hamilton, Ohio, from which newly-manufactured goods are being loaded onto barges on the Great Miami River.
Starting soon after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeping cars. Until the 1960s, Pullman porters were exclusively black and, in 1925, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, they formed the first all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. They were supervised by a Pullman conductor, who was then invariably white. In 1926, Pullman employed more than 10,000 porters, a term that has been superseded by "sleeping car attendant".Lithograph credit: Strobridge Lithographing Company