Ebook: Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad

Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad. As Jim Crow laws became more prevalent and forced Black Americans to "ride Jim Crow" on the rails, the train compartment became a contested space of leisure and work. Riding Jane Crow examines four instances of Black female railroad travel: the travel narratives of Black female intellectuals such as Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell; Black middle-class women who sued to ride in first class "ladies' cars"; Black women railroad food vendors; and Black maids on Pullman trains. Thaggert argues that the railroad represented a technological advancement that was entwined with African American attempts to secure social progress. Black women's experiences on or near the railroad illustrate how American technological progress has often meant their ejection or displacement; thus, it is the Black woman who most fully measures the success of American freedom and privilege, or "progress," through her travel experiences.|

Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Off the Tracks: Race, Gender, and the American Railroad 1. Ladies' Space: An Archive of Black Women's Railroad Narratives 2. A Kiss in the Dark: Sexualizing Black Female Mobility 3. Platform Politics: The Waiter Carriers of Virginia 4. Handmaidens for Travelers: Archiving the Pullman Company Maid Terminus: Pauli Murray, Pete, and Jane Crow Notes Bibliography Index Back cover|

"In this well-researched and accessible volume, Miriam Thaggert explores the little-known histories of railroads and Black women, as passengers, food vendors and maids." —Ms. Magazine

"This extremely well written scholarly work addresses the fact that much of the history of Black Americans has been tied to their inability to freely move about the nation." —Library Journal, starred review

"Riding Jane Crow is a must-read for anyone interested in the life of the train in American history, and especially the racial underpinnings that are less frequently the topic of its story. But the book also represents the undertaking of an astonishing scholar, furnishing hundreds of primary sources by which the reader can and should continue to educate themselves on the topic. While Thaggert expertly toes the line between her voice and those that are not her own, she takes care to present those voices with grace, genuine curiosity, and above all, historical import." —Pilgrim House
|Miriam Thaggert is an associate professor of English at SUNY Buffalo and the author of Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance.