nmaloney2011

=George Mortimer Pullman=

Pullman was born in Brocton, New York on March 3rd, 1831, the third of ten children. His family moved to Albion New York early in his life. Pullman dropped out of school at the age of fourteen and started making coffins with his uncle. In 1859, when Pullman was just twenty-eight, he moved to Chicago to raise buildings after a new sewer system was put in. His ingenious system allowed the businesses in the buildings he was working on to continue doing their jobs throughout the process. He became very wealthy because of this. He used all of his money and fame to begin designing sleeping cars on railroads. Instead of selling the cars that he made, he leased them to different companies, which got him even more money than the alternative. He even created a town for all of his workers that included comfortable homes, a bank, a church, and a sewer system. By 1893, Pullman’s company was worth $62,000,000 dollars. President Lincoln’s body was even brought back in a Pullman sleeping car to Illinois after his assassination! But in late 1893, Pullman cut wages by 30% because of the depression. He did not cut the prices and expenses in his town, and most workers could no longer afford to support their families. Pullman’s workers went on strike on May 12th, 1964. This famous strike was led by Eugene V. Debs. Debs told Pullman he had five days to respond to the strike. Pullman refused to negotiate, locked up his home and business, and then left town. This tarnished his reputation, but when the presidential commission investigated, he was completely ruined. Illinois filed a suit against the owners of his company. After Pullman’s death, his family feared that the disgruntled former employees would disturb his corpse. They had him buried in an eight foot grave with steel reinforced concrete floors and walls. Furthermore, this was covered with asphalt, concrete, and steel rails. His tomb is located in Graceland Cemetery. = = =** Pullman; Captain of Industry or Robber Barron? **= = = Pullman was clearly a Robber Barron. At the start of the depression, he cut the workers’ wages tremendously, but failed to lower prices in his town. He refused to negotiate with Debs during the strike, and instead just ran away from all of his problems. He left his company to crumble and never came back. Pullman cheated his employees and betrayed the people he trusted.



Jim Nugent, "George Pullman" Unitarian Universalist Historical Society. http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/georgemortimerpullman.html accessed 2/21/08 "People & Events: George Pullman" PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/peopleevents/p_pullman.html accessed 2/21/08
 * Bibliography**