The Parlor Car, written 1876, was not only the first of the so-called railroad plays but was in fact the first of  Howells' 25 one-act dramas.  The injection of private intimate experience into public space became a crucial aspect of American life as the 19th century wore on, Howells was a primary theorist of this shift.  It is, therefore, no mere coincidence that four of Howells's situation comedies, a genre to which he devoted considerable energies for thirty-five years, are set in railroad cars or depots.

This little play transforms a public space into a private situation and in doing so it is emblematic of the transformation of American theatre in the second half of the nineteenth century.  The trajectory of an American theatre of rowdy spaces of audience visibility and auditability transforming to darkened auditoriums habituated by only a small cross-section of the population may be imagined for better or worse as the parlor car, disengaged from the speeding train, left quietly on the tracks.

From critic Fred Lews Pattee, in "A History of American Literature": The lightness of Howells' touch, his genuine wit, and his mastery of dialogue appear at their best his little parlor comedies.  Nothing as good in their line is be found in American literature.  Had he written nothing he would still be remembered as the laureate of the trivial, who with exquisite prose style and sparkling humor made classics from the ordinary experiences of human life."

William Dean Howells wrote extensively of his travels in and about European cities such as Venice and London.   This quality of observation builds the world of The Parlor Car with travel schedules, railway trivia, boating on the Hudson, fashion and cigars.

Trains

• The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad which opened September 24, 1831, connecting  Albany and Schenectady.
• The Utica and Schenectady Railroad was chartered April 29, 1833.
• Syracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered May 1, 1836.
• The Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railway was chartered and immediately merged into the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad on August 6, 1850.
• By 1869 Cornelius Vanderbilt had acquired the existing New York Central and added his Hudson River Railroad, bringing service from Albany along the Hudson into New York City

Wood-cut to the right engraving is titled "INTERIOR OF A PULLMAN SMOKER and PARLOR CAR ON THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD BETWEEN NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA", published in  "Frank Leslie's Illustrated" January 1876. This dated engraving from the year of 1876.

Charles Dickens on American Railroads

A colorful contemporaneous view of the railroads comes from Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870), who with his wife made a first trip to the United States and Canada in 1842.  They took a one-day excursion from Boston to the factories of Lowell.  His recollections of the trip survive mostly in his travelogue, "American Notes for General Circulation," published later that year.

Dickens noticed that the American railroads had no distinct first and second class carriages like their British counterparts.  Rather, he remarked that the railroad cars were divided into gentlemen’s cars (where everyone smoked) and ladies’ cars (where no one did).  He also noted, nineteenth-century perspective clearly exhibited, that “as a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car”, which he went on to describe as a “great, blundering, clumsy chest”.

He found the railroad cars to provide a “great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell”.  The cars, he said were like “shabby omnibuses, but larger, holding thirty, forty, or fifty people.”  For warmth, the cars were equipped with a stove, he noted, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal, which was red-hot and “insufferably close”.  Through the light of its embers, one could see fumes co-mingle with the tendrils of smoke wafting in from the gentlemen’s car.  Gentlemen did ride in the ladies’ car, when they accompanied ladies.  Also, some ladies travelled alone.

Dickens bristled at the informality exhibited by the train conductor (“or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be”):  “He walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets, and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into conversation with the passengers about him.”  He also found it odd that “everybody” on the train “talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy.”

Dickens noted that politics was much discussed aboard the train, as were banks and cotton.  He also noted that, as today, “that directly [after] the acrimony of the last [presidential] election is over, the acrimony of the next one begins”.

George Mortimer Pullman and Luxury on the Railroad

• was wider and taller than anything that came before and used trucks with rubberized springs to reduce bouncing and shaking.
• The walls were covered in a rich dark walnut,the seating was covered in plush upholstery and the fixtures were brass.
• Thick curtains or silk shades covered the windows with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, which was painted with elaborate design.

• The establishment of smoking rooms in hotels and clubs and - relevant in The Parlor Car - smoking compartments on trains.
• Skullcaps in bright colors and smoking jackets were introduced to obviate the aroma of cigars clinging to normal wear.
• And of course, cases to carry the cigars. Monograms or floral Embroidered Cigat Cases patterns or detailed bucolic landscapes.

s launched toward the end of the nineteenth century as a premium cigar product. By the end of the nineteenth century there were more than 7,000 cigar factories in the United States, with some 500 located in the state of Florida.

The Parlor Car, First Publication

Augustin Daly (1838 – 1899)

It starts with John Augustin Daly, playwright and for three decades one of America's foremost theatrical producers and managers.  Among other contributions, Daly encouraged American playwrights by producing their plays and calling in print and correspondence for even better plays. He also encouraged contemporary literary figures such as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James to write plays for production. When his company took over the Fifth Avenue Theatre, in 1874, Daly sent a request to Samuel Clemens for a new play Daly might produce. Clemens declined:

Samuel Clemens (1835 - 1910)

My dear Mr. Daly, Oct. 29.

Although I am not able to write a play now, there are better men that can. Would it not be well worth your while to provoke W. D. Howells of the Atlantic Monthly into writing a play? My reason for making the suggestion is that I think he is writing a play. I by no means know this, but I guess it from a remark  dropped by an acquaintance of his. I know Howells well, but he has not confided anything of the kind to me. Still, I think if you and Bronson are done with your fight (I mean the newspaper one) it would be a right good thing to hurl another candidate into the jaws of the critics.  I am not meaning to intrude & hope I am not.  Yrs. truly, Sam L. Clemens

Mr. Daly did venture in accordance with Mark Twain's (see picture of Howells and Clemens) suggestion gently to "provoke" Mr. Howells into writing a play, and received the following :

Cambridge, Mass. Nov. 14, 1874. 

My dear Sir: — Do not suppose from the great