By the 1870s, complaints about streetcar companies had already become common. An article apparently written by the owner of a store on Pennsylvania Avenue complained bitterly about the Washington & Georgetown line. “This company was not chartered solely to put money in the pockets of its stockholders,” the writer lamented. “As we stated a few days ago, there are not half cars enough to meet the wants of the community, and those in use are hardly fit to carry hogs in…. [P]eople are crammed in the few that are used to the great risk of health and limb…. [W]e have frequently heard ladies say that they would rather pay the expense of a passage to Baltimore to make their purchases than to subject themselves to the discomfort and risk of a ride in the Pennsylvania avenue street cars.”
TRUNKS ON WHEELS
The larger cars—the ones drawn by two horses—could be crowded with as many as fifty to sixty people at a time, but they were preferred because they were manned by a conductor as well as a driver. After taking their seats or finding a strap to hang on to, customers would pay the conductor as he came through the car calling, “Fares, please!” Conductors would make change, give directions and help people on and off the car, leaving the driver to focus on steering the horses through traffic. It was all very civilized, and it was how the regular railroads operated, so people were used to this arrangement.
But the street railways had thin profit margins and tried to cut expenses wherever they could. One way was to use smaller, one-horse “bobtail” cars, which earned their nickname because they had no rear platform, just a narrow step under the back door. Riders entered directly into the passenger compartment from the rear and crammed themselves on to benches designed to seat twelve or fourteen. There was no conductor to collect fares or provide any other assistance. Passengers were responsible for depositing their fare with the driver, who sat on the front platform.
Operator and conductor pose with their full-size Belt Line streetcar in this 1890s photo. National Capital Trolley Museum.
Streetcar companies loved the economical bobtail cars. In theory, the companies could provide better and more efficient service using bobtail cars because they could run more of them and thus decrease headway between cars. Also, with fewer passengers, each car would make fewer stops and thus provide more efficient service. In the 1870s and 1880s, streetcar companies put bobtail cars on many of their lines, including Pennsylvania Avenue, where the fare for a bobtail car was discounted to three cents.
When bobtail cars were first added to the Fourteenth Street line in 1867, they were a hit. The new cars “are being liberally patronized and are much commended,” the Evening Star reported, calling the cars “light and roomy.” But the enchantment soon vanished. Even with a discounted fare, bobtail cars became extremely unpopular. The light, poorly suspended cars were cramped, uncomfortable and even dangerous. The driver couldn’t see clearly whether passengers were clear of the back door and risked hurting somebody every time he started up. A Washington Post reporter described riding a bobtail car into town on the Columbia line in 1888:
A small “bobtail” streetcar of the Belt Line makes its way through the snow on Maryland Avenue Southwest. Because of the inclement weather, two horses are pulling this car; in good weather only one would be needed. Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
It was small and dingy, and the oil lamps stuttered and flickered in their boxes at the end of the car, from which the reflectors had been broken. The little bobtail bumped and thumped along over the stones and uneven rails, making a great deal of noise, but little progress, until Massachusetts avenue and a comparatively smooth piece of track was struck. This did not last long, however, and the car was soon jolting over crossings, switches and stones again down New York avenue until it finally stopped at the end of the line, where the reporter got out and wondered why he had not walked down town.37
Worst of all, paying the driver at the front of the car was awkward and difficult. Once people were seated in the car, it was impossible to make one’s way to the front. As a result, an informal honor system developed whereby people at the back of the car would pass their tickets or fares up to the front, one hand depositing the coin or ticket in another, until it reached the driver. If a full packet of tickets was being purchased (as it often was—they were cheaper that way), the driver would hand a small yellow envelope of tickets to the rider closest to him. That individual would tear open the envelope, remove one of the tickets, slip it into the fare box and then pass the remainder down the line to the customer making the purchase.
The system relied heavily on the kindness of strangers. Some, like Chief Justice Waite, enjoyed the ritual, but most people were irritated. Aside from the inconvenience, there was the question of whether the money handed to the front would make it all the way and, when change was required, whether it was the right amount and whether it would be returned to the proper recipient. Besides, people felt indignant about being forced to handle transactions for strangers. That was supposed to be the job of the conductor.
In July 1888, the Washington Post came out against using bobtail cars on any well-traveled downtown routes:
On none of the lines of the Metropolitan Company within the city limit should the bobtail be tolerated any longer. That company is rich. Its franchises are extremely valuable. Its business is great and growing. Its dividends are regular and handsome. It has no excuse for packing its passengers into trunks on wheels and requiring them either to collect their own fares or be annoyed if not maltreated by its drivers.
The previous year, riders of the Fourteenth Street line had pressured the Washington & Georgetown line to replace at least some of its bobtail cars with two-horse cars. Encouraged by the Post, a Northeast citizens committee organized a revolt against the Columbia Railway’s bobtail cars in 1888. Participants in the revolt refused to pay their fares unless a conductor collected it personally. The protest cut into company profits but failed to convince management to put two-horse cars on the line. Sympathetic congressmen introduced a bill to ban one-horse cars from the District, and it passed the House but was not taken up by the Senate. The dispute would soon be overtaken by other events, however, as the era of horse-drawn streetcars rapidly drew to a close.
“WORSE FOR OUR COUNTRY AT THIS MOMENT THAN A DEFEAT IN BATTLE”
A deeper and more fundamental struggle over streetcar service had been fought decades earlier, when the cars made their first appearance on Washington’s streets. The struggle was about the right of African Americans to ride the cars as equals with whites. While equal access to public transit became a touchstone for the modern civil rights movement when Rosa Parks (1913–2005) defied an order in 1955 that she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white person, Parks was far from the first African American to stand up for her rights on public conveyances. Black citizens in Washington and other eastern cities, including Baltimore and Philadelphia, had been making similar protests since Civil War days.
The introduction of omnibuses in Washington in the 1830s had started the process of bringing different social classes into what many felt was disconcerting proximity. In those days, African Americans had been relegated to riding on the roofs, where baggage was stowed, or the front platforms with the drivers. The arrival of streetcars, carrying larger numbers of people and serving as a more fundamental public service, accelerated the process of social mixing and led to greater friction. White and black citizens frequently found themselves on the same cars, and the streetcar companies at first continued the previous unwritten policies of segregation. Although they paid the same fare as whites, African Americans were required to ride out on the front platforms, separate from the whites who sat inside. This was true in all types of weather—even pouring rain, snowstorms and frigid cold.
As historian Kate Masur has pointed out,38 streetcars represented a mix of private and public interests that posed unique social challenges. Like hotels and restaurants, the cars were a type of “public accommodation,” privately owned but offering essen
tial services to the public. As private entities, streetcar companies could arguably be allowed to set whatever rules they wanted on how their customers would be treated. However, as public utilities providing an essential service, the companies could just as arguably be required to ensure that all customers get the same service.
Common law required the operators of public accommodations to serve the public and not deny service arbitrarily.39 But there was little consensus on whether this meant that segregation was an unacceptable way for streetcar companies to fulfill that responsibility. A small number of whites wholeheartedly backed unrestricted access for African Americans to all streetcars. Others worried about forcing too much social change too quickly. Nevertheless, the majority of white Washingtonians opposed giving African Americans the same accommodations as whites. Concerns they expressed about the proper role of the government often masked deeply entrenched racial fears and prejudices. They simply could not imagine having to sit as equals next to African Americans on streetcars—or anywhere else.
The determination of black Washingtonians to resist streetcar segregation grew after the first D.C. regiment of U.S. Colored Troops formed in May 1863. At a June meeting to discuss the recently formed regiment, a white military officer commented that “one of the sins of the District was hatred to the colored men” and pointed to an incident in which “a number of colored men were put off a car” as an example. The audience was incensed. “I’d like to see the driver put me off,” answered someone in the crowd. Another speaker, a member of the new regiment, remarked that “he would not ride in the cars until he had his rights and could sit inside.” Statements at events like these helped crystallize the importance of the issue in the minds of many black Washingtonians, especially soldiers who wore the uniform of the U.S. Army and sought the same respect that white soldiers received.40
In the face of resistance by African American soldiers, the original policy of allowing blacks only on the front platforms of streetcars quickly became untenable. The directors of the Washington & Georgetown Railroad responded in August 1863 with a decision to procure special cars for African Americans. In October, it added six small bobtail cars to the Pennsylvania Avenue line, with signs stating, “Colored people can ride in these cars.” This tepid solution did little to resolve the problem. The Evening Star noted in November that the bobtail cars were inadequate and that the railway had decided to replace them with ten regular two-horse cars carrying the “Colored” designation. This plan supposedly would result in every third car being a “Colored” car.41 Whether that many were actually put on the line or how long they were kept in service is unknown, but in the eyes of the railway’s managers and many other white Washingtonians, this was ample and fair accommodation.
For African Americans, it was a lingering insult. Even the cars designated for black residents were not always available, as some whites thought their personal preferences could trump African American rights. Noah Brooks recounted that “occasionally a white person of bitter prejudices would stray ignorantly into one of the vehicles conceded to the colored race, and would indignantly demand of the conductor the expulsion of every person but himself, much to his own subsequent discomfiture.” Similarly, white passengers as well as drivers and conductors might harass black riders who had the misfortune to enter a “Colored” car that was already occupied by whites.42
Dr. Alexander T. Augusta. Oblate Sisters of Providence.
Finally, an incident involving Dr. Alexander T. Augusta (1825–1890), an African American surgeon in the Union army, set in a motion a more lasting change. Born a free man in Norfolk, Virginia, Augusta had learned to read in secret, since it was illegal to teach blacks to read or write. In 1840, he moved to Baltimore to work as a barber while he studied medicine on his own. Frustrated by the refusal of the University of Pennsylvania to admit him, he moved to Toronto in about 1850 to study at the Medical College of the University of Toronto, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1856. He returned to the United States as the Civil War was beginning and wrote to President Lincoln in 1862, offering his services in support of the war effort. He was appointed surgeon for the U.S. Colored Troops with a rank of major, becoming the highest-ranking African American officer in the Union army. His first post was the newly established Freedmen’s Hospital at Camp Barker, just north of present-day Logan Circle.
One rainy day in February 1864, Augusta was on his way to serve as a witness at a trial, and he hailed a car on Fourteenth Street, just one block south of where young Anna Sherman observed the horses struggling in the mud. The conductor allowed him to board the car’s platform, but despite the inclement weather and the fact that he wore the uniform of an army officer, Augusta was pushed off when he tried to enter the passenger compartment. He explained what happened in a letter to his commanding officer:
I started from my lodgings to go to the hospital I formerly had charge of to get some notes of the case I was to give evidence in, and hailed the car at the corner of Fourteenth and I streets. It was stopped for me and when I attempted to enter the conductor pulled me back, and informed me that I must ride on the front with the driver, as it was against the rules for colored persons to ride inside. I told him I would not ride on the front, and he said I should not ride at all. He then ejected me from the platform, and at the same time gave orders to the driver to go on. I have therefore been compelled to walk the distance in the mud and rain, and have also been delayed in my attendance upon the court.
Augusta shrewdly forwarded a copy of his restrained but compelling letter to Senator Charles Sumner (1811–1874), who read it on the floor of the Senate several days later. Sumner was indignant at the affront to Augusta: “Now, sir, I am free to say I think we had better give up railroads in the District of Columbia if we cannot have them without such an outrage upon humanity and upon the good name of our country. An incident like that, sir, is worse for our country at this moment than a defeat in battle.” Sumner proposed that Congress consider writing a law banning the exclusion of African Americans from “equal enjoyment of all railroad privileges in the District of Columbia.”43
Sumner, a leader of the “radical” faction of the Republican Party, was the most strident advocate of equal rights in the Senate. A talented public speaker, Sumner had made an oration against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1856 that had enraged South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks, who savagely beat him with a cane on the floor of the Senate. Although severely wounded, Sumner eventually recovered and resumed his Senate duties, leading efforts to enhance the civil rights of African Americans.
Senator Charles Sumner. Library of Congress.
Sumner’s streetcar proposal was forwarded to the Committee on the District of Columbia, which decided, predictably, that no new legislation was needed. The committee argued that common law required streetcar companies to treat everyone equitably and that if African Americans were having problems, they could sue. But Sumner persisted, and he eventually persuaded his colleagues that the streetcar issue was too important to avoid. Because of his influence, the charter of the new Metropolitan Railroad Company, approved on July 1, 1864, included a provision that “there shall be no regulation excluding any person from any car on account of color.” However, the provision applied only to the new railway, not the rival Washington & Georgetown line, which continued to run separate “Colored” cars. The problem had been only partially solved at this point.
Sumner and others in Congress made sure that the issue of African American rights on streetcars was revisited when new streetcar legislation came up. The next opportunity came in February 1865, when a law was proposed allowing streetcar companies to charge higher fares because of wartime inflation. Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) of Pennsylvania, a leader of the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives, raised the issue on the House floor:
Mr. Stevens wished to know whether colored persons were not ejected from the cars.
Mr. [James W.] Patterson [of New Hampshire] said some mean con
ductors had so acted, but the president of the Washington and Georgetown company had informed him such conductors had been discharged.
Mr. [Henry L.] Dawes [of Massachusetts] wished to know what was the meaning of the signboard attached to the cars, “Colored persons admitted.” Mr. Patterson replied that that notice was painted in good English, and no man could better understand it than the gentleman from Massachusetts.44
Clearly, tensions were high, but in the end the Radical Republicans prevailed. In March 1865, the law was passed with a provision extending the prohibition against race-based regulations to all street railways of the District of Columbia.
“I WANT TO RIDE!”
The only question at this point was whether the new law would be enforced. African Americans continued to push for their rights and continued to be harassed and physically banned or removed from white-occupied cars. Captain William F. Spurgin, superintendent of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands for Washington and Georgetown, reported in September 1865 that most Washingtonians didn’t respect the rights of African Americans. “Although the law grants them the privilege to ride in the street cars, but few [white people] think the negro should be permitted to do so, and that if he rides at all he should ride on the platform in front.”45 What was needed was a high-profile case that could be used to pressure the streetcar companies into enforcing compliance.
Capital Streetcars Page 5
