George Mortimer Pullman (March 3, 1831 – October 19, 1897) was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the
Pullman sleeping car
The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the American innovator of the sleeper car.
...
and founded a
company town
A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...
,
Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. This ultimately led to the Pullman Strike due to the high rent prices charged for company housing and low wages paid by the Pullman Company. His Pullman Company also hired African-American men to staff the Pullman cars, known as Pullman porters, who provided elite service and were compensated only in tips.
Struggling to maintain profitability during an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he halved wages and required workers to spend long hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents and goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Ch ...
of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898, the
Supreme Court of Illinois
The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the State of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five ap ...
ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town, which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago.
Early life
Pullman was born in 1831 in
Brocton, New York
Brocton is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The name was derived by combining the names "Brockway" and "Minton", two prominent local families. The population was 1,335 at the 2020 census. Brocton is within the town of Portl ...
, the son of Emily Caroline (Minton) and carpenter James Lewis Pullman. His family moved to
Albion, New York, along the
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...
in 1845, so his father could help widen the canal. His father had invented a machine using jack screws that could move buildings or other structures out of the way and onto new foundations and had patented it in 1841. By that time,
packet boats
Packet boats were medium-sized boats designed for domestic mail, passenger, and freight transportation in European countries and in North American rivers and canals, some of them steam driven. They were used extensively during the 18th and 19th ...
carried people on day excursions along the canal, plus travellers and freight craft would be towed across the state along the busy canal.
Pullman attended local schools and helped his father, learning other skills that contributed to his later success. Later,he dropped out of school at the age of 14. In 1855, his father died.
Career
Pullman was a clerk for a country merchant.
Pullman took over the family business. In 1856, Pullman won a contract with the State of New York to move 20 buildings out of the way of the widening canal.
Chicago
In 1857, as a young engineer, Pullman arrived in Chicago, Illinois as the city prepared to build the nation's first comprehensive sewer system.
Pullman formed a partnership known as Ely, Smith & Pullman. Chicago was built on a low-lying bog, and people described the mud in the streets as deep enough to drown a horse. The growing city needed a sewer system, and Pullman's became one of several companies hired to lift multi-story buildings four to six feet—to both allow sewers to be constructed and to improve the foundations. The project would involve effectively raising the street level 6–8 feet, first constructing the sewers at ground level, then covering them. The Ely, Smith & Pullman partnership gained favorable publicity for
raising
Raising may refer to:
*Raising (linguistics), a syntactic construction
*Raising (phonetics), a sound change
*Raising (metalworking), a metalworking technique
*Barn raising, a community event to erect the wooden framework for a building
*Fundraising ...
the massive
Tremont House, a six-story brick hotel, while the guests remained inside.
Pullman sleeping car
![Pullman's Palace Car Comp 1892](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Pullman%27s_Palace_Car_Comp_1892.JPG)
Pullman developed a railroad
sleeping car
The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the American innovator of the sleeper car.
...
, the Pullman sleeper or "palace car". These were designed after the packet boats that travelled the
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...
of his youth in Albion. The first one was finished in 1864.
After President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
was assassinated, Pullman arranged to have his body carried from Washington, D.C. to
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
on a sleeper, for which he gained national attention, as hundreds of thousands of people lined the route in homage. Lincoln's body was carried on the
Presidential train car that Lincoln himself had commissioned that year. Pullman had cars in the train, notably for the President's surviving family. Orders for his new car began to pour into his company. The sleeping cars proved successful although each cost more than five times the price of a regular railway car. They were marketed as "luxury for the middle class".
In 1867, Pullman introduced his first "hotel on wheels," the ''President'', a sleeper with an attached kitchen and dining car. The food rivaled the best restaurants of the day and the service was impeccable. A year later in 1868, he launched the ''Delmonico'', the world's first sleeping car devoted to fine cuisine. The ''Delmonico'' menu was prepared by chefs from New York's famed
Delmonico's Restaurant
Delmonico's is the name of a series of restaurants that operated in New York City, with the present version located at 56 Beaver Street in the Financial District of Manhattan. The original version was widely recognized as the United States ...
.
Both the ''President'' and the ''Delmonico'' and subsequent Pullman sleeping cars offered first-rate service. The company hired African-American
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
as Pullman porters. Many of the men had been former domestic slaves in the South. Their new roles required them to act as porters, waiters, valets, and entertainers, all rolled into one person.
As they were paid relatively well and got to travel the country, the position became considered prestigious, and Pullman porters were respected in the black communities.
Pullman believed that if his sleeper cars were to be successful, he needed to provide a wide variety of services to travelers: collecting tickets, selling berths, dispatching wires, fetching sandwiches, mending torn trousers, converting day coaches into sleepers, etc. Pullman believed that former house slaves of the
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
South had the right combination of training to serve the businessmen who would patronize his "Palace Cars". Pullman became the biggest single employer of African Americans in post-Civil War America.
[
In 1869, Pullman bought out the Detroit Car and Manufacturing Company. Pullman bought the patents and business of his eastern competitor, the Central Transportation Company in 1870. In the spring of 1871, Pullman, ]Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
, and others bailed out the financially troubled Union Pacific; they took positions on its board of directors. By 1875, the Pullman firm owned $100,000 worth of patents, had 700 cars in operation, and had several hundred thousand dollars in the bank.
In 1887, Pullman designed and established the system of "vestibuled train
A vestibuled train is a passenger train whose cars have enclosed vestibules at their ends, in contrast to the open platforms on early cars. Typically, a vestibule has doorways on either side to allow passenger entry and exit at stations, a door ...
s," with cars linked by covered gangways instead of open platforms. The vestibules were first put in service on the Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
trunk lines.
The French social scientist Paul de Rousiers
Paul de Rousiers (16 January 1857 – 28 March 1934) was a French social economist and industrial lobbyist.
He was a follower of Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play, and believed in industrial syndicates that would be independent of both workers a ...
(1857–1934), who visited Chicago in 1890, wrote of Pullman's manufacturing complex, "Everything is done in order and with precision. One feels that some brain of superior intelligence, backed by a long technical experience, has thought out every possible detail."
Pullman company town
In 1880, Pullman bought , near Lake Calumet
Lake Calumet is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it has been changed beyond recognition by industrial redevelopment and decay. Parts of the lake have been dr ...
some south of Chicago, on the Illinois Central
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also co ...
Railroad for $800,000.
Pullman hired Solon Spencer Beman
Solon Spencer Beman (October 1, 1853 – April 23, 1914) was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois and best known as the architect of the Urban planning, planned Pullman, Chicago, Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory ...
to design his new plant there. Trying to solve the issue of labor unrest and poverty, he also built a company town adjacent to his factory; it featured housing, shopping areas, churches, theaters, parks, hotel and library for his factory employees. The 1300 original structures were entirely designed by Solon Spencer Beman
Solon Spencer Beman (October 1, 1853 – April 23, 1914) was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois and best known as the architect of the Urban planning, planned Pullman, Chicago, Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory ...
. The centerpiece of the complex was the Administration Building and a man-made lake. The Hotel Florence
The Hotel Florence is a former hotel located in the Pullman Historic District on the far south side of Chicago, Illinois. It was built in 1881 to a design by architect Solon Spencer Beman. Since 1991, it has been owned by the Illinois Historic ...
, named for Pullman's daughter, was built nearby.
Pullman believed that the country air and fine facilities, without agitators, saloons and city vice districts, would result in a happy, loyal workforce. The model planned community became a leading attraction for visitors who attended the World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordi ...
of 1893. It attracted nationwide attention. The national press praised Pullman for his benevolence and vision. According to mortality statistics, it was one of the most healthful places in the world.[
The industrialist still expected the town to make money as an enterprise. By 1892, the community, profitable in its own right, was valued at over $5 million. Pullman ruled the town like a feudal baron. Pullman prohibited independent newspapers, public speeches, town meetings or open discussion. His inspectors regularly entered homes to inspect for cleanliness and could terminate workers' leases on ten days' notice. The church stood empty since no approved denomination would pay rent, and no other congregation was allowed. He prohibited private charitable organizations. In 1885 Richard Ely wrote in '']Harper's Weekly
''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...
'' that the power exercised by Otto Von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
(known as the unifier of modern Germany), was "utterly insignificant when compared with the ruling authority of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Pullman".
The Pullman community is a historic district that has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
In the 1930s, Hotel Florence, named for Pullman's daughter, was one of the most popular brothels in the city.
Marktown
Marktown is an urban planned worker community in East Chicago, Indiana, United States, built during the Progressive Era in 1917 from marshland to provide a complete community for workers at The Mark Manufacturing Company. ''Note:'' This include ...
, Indiana, Clayton Mark
Clayton Mark (June 30, 1858 – July 7, 1936), one of the pioneer makers of steel pipe in the United States, was an industrialist in the Chicago area who founded the Mark Manufacturing Company in 1888, a firm for the fabrication and sale of water-w ...
's planned worker community, was developed nearby.
Pullman strike
In 1894, when manufacturing demand fell off, Pullman cut jobs and wages and increased working hours in his plant to lower costs and keep profits, but he did not lower rents or prices in the company town. The workers eventually launched a strike. When violence broke out, he gained the support of President Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
for the use of United States troops. Cleveland sent in the troops, who harshly suppressed the strike in action that caused many injuries, over the objections of the Illinois governor, John Altgeld
John Peter Altgeld (December 30, 1847 – March 12, 1902) was an American politician and the 20th Governor of Illinois, serving from 1893 until 1897. He was the first Democrat to govern that state since the 1850s. A leading figure of the Progr ...
.
In the winter of 1893–94, at the start of a depression, Pullman decided to cut wages by 30%. This was not unusual in the age of the robber barons, but he didn't reduce the rent in Pullman, because he had guaranteed his investors a 6% return on their investments in the town. A workman might make $9.07 in a fortnight, and the rent of $9 would be taken directly out of his paycheck, leaving him with just 7 cents to feed his family. One worker later testified: "I have seen men with families of eight or nine children crying because they got only three or four cents after paying their rent." Another described conditions as "slavery worse than that of Negroes of the South".
On May 12, 1894, the workers went on strike.
The American Railway Union was led by Eugene Victor Debs
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Soc ...
, a pacifist and socialist who later founded the Socialist Party of America and was its candidate for president in five elections. Under the leadership of Debs, sympathetic railroad workers across the nation tied up rail traffic to the Pacific. The so-called "Debs Rebellion" had begun.
Arcade Building with strikers and soldiers Debs gave Pullman five days to respond to the union demands but Pullman refused even to negotiate (leading another industrialist to yell, "The damned idiot ought to arbitrate, arbitrate and arbitrate! ...A man who won't meet his own men halfway is a God-damn fool!"). Instead, Pullman locked up his home and business and left town.
On June 26, all Pullman cars were cut from trains. When union members were fired, entire rail lines were shut down, and Chicago was besieged. One consequence was a blockade of the federal mail, and Debs agreed to let isolated mail cars into the city. Rail owners mixed mail cars into all their trains however, and then called in the federal government when the mail failed to get through.
Debs could not pacify the pent-up frustrations of the exploited workers, and violence broke out between rioters and the federal troops that were sent to protect the mail. On July 8, soldiers began shooting strikers. That was the beginning of the end of the strike. By the end of the month, 34 people had been killed, the strikers were dispersed, the troops were gone, the courts had sided with the railway owners, and Debs was in jail for contempt of court.
Pullman's reputation was soiled by the strike, and then officially tarnished by the presidential commission that investigated the incident. The national commission report found Pullman's paternalism partly to blame and described Pullman's company town as "un-American". The report condemned Pullman for refusing to negotiate and for the economic hardships he created for workers in the town of Pullman. "The aesthetic features are admired by visitors, but have little money value to employees, especially when they lack bread." The State of Illinois filed suit, and in 1898, the Supreme Court of Illinois
The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the State of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five ap ...
forced the Pullman Company to divest ownership in the town, which was annexed to Chicago.
Personal life and death
On October 19, 1897, Pullman died of a heart attack in Chicago, Illinois. He was 66 years old. Pullman was buried at Graceland Cemetery
Graceland Cemetery is a large historic garden cemetery located in the north side community area of Uptown, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Established in 1860, its main entrance is at the intersection of Clark Street and Ir ...
in Chicago, Illinois. George and his wife Hattie had four children: Florence, Harriett, George Jr. and Walter Sanger Pullman.
Burial
Fearing that some of his former employees or other labor supporters might try to dig up his body, his family arranged for his remains to be placed in a lead-lined mahogany coffin, which was then sealed inside a block of concrete. At the cemetery, a large pit had been dug at the family plot. At its base and walls were 18 inches of reinforced concrete. The coffin was lowered, and covered with asphalt and tarpaper. More concrete was poured on top, followed by a layer of steel rails bolted together at right angles, and another layer of concrete. The entire burial process took two days. His monument, featuring a Corinthian column flanked by curved stone benches, was designed by Solon Spencer Beman
Solon Spencer Beman (October 1, 1853 – April 23, 1914) was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois and best known as the architect of the Urban planning, planned Pullman, Chicago, Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory ...
, the architect of the company town of Pullman.
Scottish Rite
Pullman was initiated to the Scottish Rite
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction in the United States often omits the ''and'', while the English Constitution in the United Kingdom omits the ''Scottish''), commonly known as simply the Sco ...
Freemasonry in the Renovation Lodge No. 97, Albion, New York until he raised the 33rd and highest degree.
Public projects
Pullman was identified with various public enterprises, among them the Metropolitan elevated railway system of New York. It was constructed and opened to the public by a corporation of which he was president.[
The ]Pullman Company
The Pullman Company, founded by George Pullman, was a manufacturer of railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Through rapid late-19th century d ...
merged in 1930 with Standard Steel Car Company
The Standard Steel Car Company (SSC) was a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock in the United States that existed between 1902 and 1934.
Established in 1902 in Butler, Pennsylvania by John M. Hansen and "Diamond Jim" Brady, the company quic ...
to become Pullman-Standard, which built its last car for Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
in 1982. After delivery the Pullman-Standard plant stayed in limbo, and eventually shut down. In 1987, its remaining assets were absorbed by Bombardier.
Legacy
*In Pullman's will, he bequeathed $1.2 million to establish the Pullman Free School of Manual Training for the children of employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company and the residents of the neighboring Roseland community. In 1950, the George M. Pullman Educational Foundation succeeded the Pullman Free School of Manual Training, also known as Pullman Tech, after it closed its doors in 1949. Located in Chicago, Illinois, the George M. Pullman Educational Foundation supports college-bound high school seniors with merit-based, need-based scholarships to attend the college of their choice. Since its founding, the Foundation has awarded approximately $30 million to over 13,000 outstanding Cook County students.
*The city of Pullman, Washington
Pullman () is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Thr ...
is named in his honor. The town expected him to build major railroads in Pullman, but the route went into Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
.
*The Pullman Memorial Universalist Church (1894) in Albion, New York, was funded and built by Pullman in memory of his parents.
See also
* Pullman porter
Pullman porters were men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers’ bagga ...
* Pullman, Chicago
Pullman, one of Chicago's 77 defined community areas, is a neighborhood located on the city's South Side. Twelve miles from the Chicago Loop, Pullman is situated adjacent to Lake Calumet.
The area known as Pullman encompasses a much wider ...
* The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railwa ...
, organized after Pullman's death, was a leading African-American union.
References
Further reading
* Dwyer, Michael Middleton. ''Carolands''. Redwood City, CA: San Mateo County Historical Association, 2006.
External links
Historic Pullman Neighborhood site
George M. Pullman Educational Foundation
*Carolands
Carolands Chateau is a , 4.5 floor, 98 room mansion on in Hillsborough, California. An example of American Renaissance and Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts design, the building is a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the Nationa ...
PBS: Chicago
Pullman House in Colorado
1910 Steel Pullman Business Car
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pullman, George
1831 births
1897 deaths
People from Brocton, New York
People from Albion, Orleans County, New York
American people of German descent
American manufacturing businesspeople
19th-century American inventors
Businesspeople from Chicago
American people in rail transportation
American Civil War industrialists
Burials at Graceland Cemetery (Chicago)
American Christian universalists
19th-century Christian universalists
Pullman, Washington
Pullman Company