Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George"

Known simply as SPCSCPG, the man who created the Society for Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George called Clinton home. A George was behind this group, and this George was the key organizer behind two of Clinton's most enduring businesses, Eclipse Lumber Company and the Climax Engineering Company.

George Dulany established Eclipse Lumber in Minneapolis, but the firm had 22 lumber yards throughout America. To better manage the yards, George moved the headquarters to Clinton in 1910. He purchased the old Lamb Office Building, which sadly no longer stands.

While in Clinton, he is often credited for the creation of the Chamber of Commerce, getting the local Boy Scout troop started, and serving various other local organizations. His national claim to fame was the creation of SPCSCPG in perhaps 1914 or 1916. Eventually, the Society had Babe Ruth and King George as members, and at its height, 30,000 other members joned to advocate that the nickname for porters be changed from George to well anything.

Why would a George from Clinton, Iowa, England, and others care? Porters were almost always African-American. They were called George because George Pullman was their boss. A holdover from slavery, whites prescribed to African-Americans their master's, or in this case boss's, name. This didn't sit well with George Dulany.

Like so many whites in the turn of the century (like my boy William Faulkner), there was often an interesting relationship between blacks and whites. Whites, while not necessarily wanting the death of African-Americans, often operated from a very paternalistic position of power. George funded the Piney Woods Country Life School, a black boarding school in Mississippi, in "the memory of Aunt Lunky, a faithful mammy who served our family many years."

It is one thing to help educate those who served you. It's another to have to see them take your name. So whether out of amusement or true consternation, George Dulany founded the SPCSCPG. In 1959, the Clinton Herald described the SPCSCPG as one of his lighter side projects that was a "national fun organization." The Society was often featured in Time, Business Weekly, and other magazines. The Society sent out tens of thousands of membership cards to every George it could find.

While Dulany might have been having fun, it was real for the porters. The use of the name George robbed them of their identity. Having to be subjected to this harassment, tested their patience. George truly meant nigger. Whites realized quickly that the n word was charged. The use of the n-word would be too much for many whites. George though solved that. It solved it so much that George caught on in other professions. In fact, today the grunt workers at car dealerships are often called George.

Porters always fought and eventually gained a union and many rights like nametags.