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Iron Women: The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad
The creation of the railroad system in the United States is a stirring story of American initiative and enterprise. Every conceivable obstacle stood in the way of the railroad’s success. An apathetic public jeered at early efforts to provide rail transportation; it was difficult to convince them that it was safe or would make a profit. Mechanical difficulties ran all the way from finding engines that would run to perfecting rails, wheels, and signals.
In some eastern locations, tracks were torn up by indignant citizens, and in one city they were declared a public nuisance. A famous newspaper issued a warning that “the use of steam with its train of coaches, its ‘soft effeminate cushions causing easement to bodies and legs,’ would rob passengers of manliness.”
The close relation of railroads to all the people was aptly described by railroad historian Agnes C. Laut in an article in the October 24, 1929, edition of The Daily Republican. Laut noted that the railways can prosper “only as the communities they service prosper and their empires prosper. The well- being of one is bound up in the well-being of the other; and neither can be hurt without hurting the other.”
The first routes where the tracks could be laid were little more than crude trails through thick undergrowth that led west from Boston and New England along the Mohawk Valley to Lake Erie, from Philadelphia and Baltimore across the Appalachians to the Ohio River Valley, and from Virginia and North Carolina to Nashville and Louisville. For more than thirty years, railway tracks were laid without interruption across the country from the late 1820s. By 1850, they crisscrossed many states totaling more than nine thousand miles of tracks. Men from all walks of life and many ethnic backgrounds, from the Chinese to the Irish, carved out sections in the vast grasslands, dense forests, and rolling mountains. Women contributed to the grand effort in many ways, not the least of which was refining the creation and making it suitable for all who hoped to benefit from the revolutionary mode of transportation. Women also played a part in bringing about an end to the discriminating tactic employed by railroad companies.
A great deal was accomplished technologically in a relatively short amount of time in the railroad industry. What didn’t progress as quickly as the advancement in conveyance was the acceptance of the population regardless of race or ethnic background. The less attractive element of railroad development was the creation of the Jim Crow car. The car was identical in structure to other passenger cars but contained a patrician which would separate the races. The section where the Black Americans would sit had no restroom and often times no water fountain.
In 1870 and 1881, the practice of segregating ticket buyers was challenged by two women. In early 1870, Mary Jane Chilton boarded a train in St. Louis with her fifteen-year-old daughter and eight-year-old nephew. The trio were bound for Carondelet, an annexed neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. With tickets in hand, Mary proceeded to the ladies’ car. A brakeman quickly stepped in front of her and blocked her way. The conductor following behind him approved of his actions. Mary was told that the ladies’ car was not for women of color and was instructed to find a place to sit in the smoker’s car. Men rode in the smoker’s car, most of which smoked and drank while traveling.
