Two national Freedom Trains have toured the United States: the 1947–1949 special exhibit Freedom Train and the 1975–76 American Freedom Train, which celebrated the United States Bicentennial. Each train had its own special red, white, and blue paint scheme and its own itinerary and route across the 48 contiguous states, stopping to visit and displaying Americana and related historical artifacts. Attempts have been made to have the Freedom Train running again in 2026 to commemorate the United States Semiquincentennial.
The 1940s Freedom Train exhibit was integrated—black and white viewers were allowed to mingle freely. When town officials in Birmingham, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee, refused to allow blacks and whites to see the exhibits at the same time, the Freedom Train skipped the planned visits. Public critique followed the train as integration remained an issue in other stops.
1947–1949 Freedom Train
The first Freedom Train was proposed in April 1946 by Attorney General Tom C. Clark, who believed that Americans had begun taking the principles of liberty for granted in the post-war years. The idea was adopted by a coalition that included Paramount Pictures and the Advertising Council, which had just changed its name from "War Advertising Council".
Plans and messaging Thomas D'Arcy Brophy (of the advertising firm Kenyon & Eckhardt) described the Freedom Train as "a campaign to sell America to Americans". The Advertising Council planned an assortment of other events to accompany the train, including messages in radio programs, comic books, and films. In each city where the train stopped, they organized a "Rededication Week" for public celebrations of the United States. In February 1947, the group formed the "American Heritage Foundation" and named Brophy its president.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), pp. 40–41.
The Board of Trustees for the new foundation included: Winthrop W. Aldrich (chairman), president of Chase National Bank and brother-in-law of J. D. Rockefeller Jr. Chester Barnard, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation John Foster Dulles, then a lawyer and Republican political advisor, soon to become the U.S. Secretary of State Paul G. Hoffman, CEO of Studebaker automobile company, administrator of the Marshall Plan, and soon-to-be President of the Ford Foundation Eric Johnston, former President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and president of the Motion Picture Association of America Reinhold Niebuhr, prominent theologian Charles E. Wilson, CEO of the General Electric Company and soon to be chief of the Office of Defense Mobilization—sometimes described as "co-president" of the United States under Truman
The Board of Trustees did not include any African-Americans until after the train had launched. Walter White, Lester Granger, and A. Philip Randolph were proposed and rejected as candidates for membership.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 55. Frederick D. Patterson, president of Tuskegee Institute and founder of the United Negro College Fund was named as a trustee in October 1947.
American Federation of Labor president William Green and Congress of Industrial Organizations president Philip Murray were vice presidents of the Foundation.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 48.
The National Archives supplied the train with key documents, while, as archivist Elizabeth Hamer noted in August 1947, "Hollywood, chiefly, is putting up the capital for this exhibit."Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 40. The Foundation rejected the list of documents proposed by the National Archives, which included documents such as Executive Order 8802. Contrary to the Justice Department's wishes, the Foundation excluded collective bargaining from the list of citizens' rights.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), pp. 48–49. "The National Archives' staff originally compiled documents and produced a wide-ranging and intriguing collection. The staff recommended documents covering women's suffrage, collective bargaining, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802, and the National Labor Relations Act. The Foundation was unhappy with the list because it 'detracts from our objectives.' In April 1947, the Foundation rejected the Archives' list and gained control of document selection with the creation of the Documents Approval Committee." In the final roster, the only document about black history was the Emancipation Proclamation—and even in this case, accompanying commentary focused on the white president Abraham Lincoln who issued the document. The Freedom Train also displayed a letter from Christopher Columbus, the Mayflower Compact, and documents of German and Japanese surrender from World War II.McGinnis, "The Advertising Council and the Cold War" (1991), p. 73.
While preparing for the tour, the planners decided to downplay comparisons of the United States with the Nazis, as well as direct calls for foreign intervention. Instead, they sought to craft a shared ideology for Americans. Clark wrote, "Indoctrination in democracy is the essential catalytic agent needed to blend our various groups into one American family. Without it, we could not sustain the continuity of our way of life. In its largest sense, preaching Americanism is an affirmative declaration of our faith in ourselves".Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 42.
The Freedom Train displayed exhibits such as "Good Citizen", which portrayed men wearing suits.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 43. "Good Citizen, with prescribed duties for good Americans, expressed business and advertising leaders' values and attitudes toward social and economic relationships (Fig. 4). With only a few exceptions in Good Citizen and in advertisements, a white male professional, businessman or civil servant in a suit was the ideal citizen to emulate; the materials did not depict working class, ethnic, or racial diversity." Exhibits also defined American freedoms in terms of consumerism and boasted of superior commodity production.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 46. "Material goods and self-fulfillment through consumption measured freedom: Americans experienced 'the highest standard of living in the history of mankind, the most leisure time, the greatest per capita wealth, [and] the opportunity for the fullest development of the human personality.' According to the Advertising Council's citizenship manual, Good Citizen, the United States possessed 72 percent of the world's automobiles, 61 percent of the world's telephones, and 92 percent of the world's bathtubs. The Freedom Train program, Barney Balaban said several months later, meant 'accentuation of the essential unity of the American system.' 'Our American economic family ...,' with capital and labor united, had conquered the Atlantic, the Alleghenies, the continent:[...]" For women (more often referred to as "girls" or "sisters"), good citizenship was defined in terms of clothing, participation in certain acceptable community activities, and raising children.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 47. "Advertising Council news features for women celebrated democracy in fashion, liberty to attend PTA meetings, and the right to donate time and funds to charity: freedom for American women was as precious as 'grandmother's old diamond ring.' Most of the features patronized women, referring to them as 'sister' and 'girl,' and rarely argued that jobs gained in the war were a favorable advance. The text of the advertising mats urged women to participate in civic and government activities, but the visual images suggested that women's main concern was child-rearing."
Execution
An ALCO PA diesel-electric locomotive pulled the seven-car train, which carried the original versions of the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Truman Doctrine, and the Bill of Rights on its tour of more than 300 cities in all 48 states. As Alaska and Hawaii did not gain statehood until 1959, this train toured all of the U.S. states that existed at the time. It was the first train to visit all 48 contiguous states (the Rexall Train in 1936 had come close, but missed Nevada).
Top Marines were selected to attend the training and the famous documents. Col. Robert F. Scott led the Marine contingent. According to attendees, Mark and Mary Ellen Murphy:
"With polite and firm prodding, the Marines hurried through as many as 1200 persons an hour, giving each an average of three seconds to look at each exhibit. As they shuffled through the beige-and-green cars, they listened to regional and patriotic music played over a public address system and to a 'move faster' exhortation by a suave Marine voice which came through the speaker every time a record changed."Mark Murphy and Mary Ellen Murphy, "Freedom Train", Holiday 1 (January 1948), p. 116; quoted in Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), pp. 50–51.
The Freedom Train even had an official song, written by Irving Berlin and performed by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.
The train's first public display stop occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 17, 1947. From there, the train traveled in a route that took it up to New England, down the Atlantic coast to Florida, across the nation's southern states to California, up the Pacific coast to Washington, then across the northern states to Minnesota. After touring the perimeter of the nation, the train moved inland from Minnesota to Colorado, then Kansas and Missouri, north to Wisconsin, then south to the Ohio River valley, north again to Michigan, and finally east to New Jersey. The train's official tour ended on January 22, 1949, in Washington, D.C., nearly three months after its last public display on October 26, 1948, in Havre de Grace, Maryland. A notable stop on the train's itinerary was its appearance at the Chicago Railroad Fair from July 5–9 that year.
The American Heritage Foundation gave licenses to some vendors to sell Freedom Train gear, such as books and postcards, while barring unauthorized merchants from selling other Freedom paraphernalia.Little, "The Freedom Train" (1993), p. 50.
The white press favored the train with mostly positive coverage. One exception was John O'Donnell, who commented in the Washington Times-Herald: "... we understand a committee headed by Winthrop Alrich, son-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., is launching the campaign. Their wayward historical bus is scheduled to depart with great huzzahs from the White House ... Hold on to your hats, boys, you're going for another ride, and remember to keep the moths out of that uniform."John O'Donnell, "Capitol Stuff," Washington Times Herald, 15 May 1947; quoted in McGinnis, "The Advertising Council and the Cold War" (1991), pp. 85–86.
In the view of the Advertising Council, the Freedom Train succeeded, especially through the local rallies and media messages which accompanied it. This multifaceted project thus became a model for future efforts in the Cold War.McGinnis, "The Advertising Council and the Cold War" (1991), p. 94. "The advertising industry at first thought that it could solve social problems through advertising alone, but by 1949 Brophy had decided, largely on his Freedom Train experience, that to be fully effective, a national advertising program needed to be combined with a strong program in local communities. The train was an excellent example of just such a combined program."
Conflict over segregation