slaves andfreed said, i have a job for you. come be a pullman porter. going to travel the country. you are going to get a uniform which will be a sign of respect in your society. we are going to give you a decent wage. what he did not tell the porters that went along with that was exactly what they were going to be doing, as far as being a pullman porter was concerned. you need to look at the actual job from two perspectives. george pullman wanted to provide consistent service. he wanted everybody's experience on a pullman car to be exactly the same, no matter what railroad you were on, no matter what part of the country you were in, no matter when you were traveling. he used pullman porters as the instrument, along with the cars, to make that happen. from the side of the pullman porters, it was a job, a job better than a lot of other folks in their class or race had. the idea of having the uniform was a big deal. a man in uniform, at the time, was important. pullman, to provide that consistent service, saddled the porters with a rulebook that had over