PDF African American Frontiers: Slave Narratives and Oral Histories by Alan Govenar in History

Description

Nimrod J. Bell worked as a conductor for several southern railroads in their formative period; from 1857 to 1894. After his career was cut short by an accident; he wrote his memoirs detailing his first glimpses of some of the earliest trains in the South and his thirty-eight years as a conductor. Published in Atlanta in 1896; his book offers a firsthand account of working conditions on the railroads; operational procedures; wartime railroading; and passenger travel during Reconstruction.