Originally built beyond the Chicago city limits, it is in the Pullman community area of Chicago. The district includes the Pullman administration buildings and the company's Hotel Florence, named after George Pullman's daughter, as well as housing originally built for workers and managers. Also within the district is the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, named for the prominent labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, which recognizes and explores African American labor history.[3] Parts of the site were acquired by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency prior to being gifted to the federal government.[4][5] Additional grounds remain owned by the state, as the Pullman State Historic Site.[6] The Pullman District, including the national historical park, state historic site, and private homes is east of Cottage Grove Avenue, from East 103rd St. to East 115th St.[7] It was named a Chicago Landmark district on October 16, 1972.[1] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 8, 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark on December 30, 1970.[8]
Preservationists had hoped to extend the district to include Schlitz Row, but the taverns located there have been demolished.[9] President Barack Obama named the site a national monument on February 19, 2015, making it a component of the National Park System.[4][10] It was redesignated a National Historical Park in 2022. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Pullman was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places[11] by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component and was recognized by USA Today Travel magazine as one of AIA Illinois's selections for Illinois 25 Must See Places.[12]
Background
George Pullman was born in Brocton, New York and studied engineering. By the 1850s, Chicago was emerging as a major city, but faced sanitation issues. Pullman designed a method to raise buildings, which allowed better drainage. This innovation led Pullman to great financial success. With this new-found wealth, Pullman founded the Pullman Palace Car Company to manufacture sleeping cars in 1867. Through a focus on luxury and customer comfort, Pullman gained a large market share in the railroad car sector. The expensive cars were typically rented out to railroads with trained employees, many of whom were former house slaves recently freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.[13]
Pullman company town c. 1880
Pullman was an early advocate of employee welfare in a city that was a hotbed for labor unrest in the 1870s. When a new factory was required to meet demand, Pullman was presented with an opportunity to integrate employee betterment with manufacturing efficiency. As land values were skyrocketing in the city proper, Pullman purchased 4,000 acres (1,600ha) south of Chicago, between the Illinois Central Railroad line and Lake Calumet. He organized the Pullman Land Association to oversee non-manufacturing real estate and transferred all but 500 acres (200ha) to its control.[13]
The Pullman Palace Car Works, 1893
Solon Spencer Beman was commissioned with the design of the company town buildings, including 1,300 housing units. Nathaniel Franklin Barrett was tasked with the layout and landscape design. Former Chicago superintendent of sewage Benzette Williams developed the utilities and drainage system. The project began in early 1880 and the first factory buildings were nearly completed by fall. Housing was mainly built as red brick rowhouses and featured indoor plumbing. The spacious accommodations were a significant improvement over the tenements that workers were used to. Architecture predominately evoked the Queen Anne style with Romanesque details.[13]
The town was designed with the hope that other companies would want to relocate there. Only Pullman subsidiaries and suppliers ever shared the campus. Additional housing was built north of the factories after the Union Foundry and Allen Paper Car Company moved their operations there. Beman designed simpler, cheaper housing for these largely unskilled employees. Pullman employees, by contrast, were largely young and skilled. Rents were set to provide a 6% profit to the company over construction costs. By 1883, the population of the community reached 8,000. The community was diverse: by 1885, less than half of the employees were American-born, but African Americans were not allowed to live on the premises. Women were employed by the Pullman Company to sew.[13]
The City of Chicago annexed Pullman in 1889, though the Land Association maintained control of town management. The town was not the success that George Pullman envisioned; profits from rent never reached the six percent intended. Pullman was a popular attraction during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, as visitors came to see the unusual town advertised in the Transportation Building. The Panic of 1893 began that year, devastating the railroad industry. Demand for sleeping cars plummeted, so to maintain a profitable enterprise, Pullman lowered wages for employees. Rents, automatically deducted from paychecks, were not decreased.[13]
Striking workers outside the Arcade Building
Meanwhile, the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, formed in Chicago on June 20, 1893. Membership grew to 150,000, including many of the white workers of Pullman. Pullman employees attempted to use the union to leverage support for wage increases, but their pleas were ignored. On May 11, 1894, employees went on strike. Pullman leadership, however, had put itself in a financial position to withstand a short-term work stoppage as the nation recovered from the financial panic.[13]
To combat this, the ARU launched a boycott on Pullman, where ARU would refuse to run trains with the cars. The extensive use of Pullman cars across the country further crippled the railroad industry and stymied rail traffic. The twenty-four Chicago railroads represented by the General Managers' Association rallied together against the boycott. They used strikebreakers to replace striking workers and convinced lines to run Pullman cars with their mail cars. If strikers shut down lines with mail cars, the federal government would have to intervene as it threatened interstate commerce. Indeed, lines were closed and the government found the boycott in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[13]
Thousands of U.S. Marshals and Army troops were deployed to Chicago to break the boycott. Fights between the workers and the military left dozens dead or injured. After ARU leaders, including Debs, were jailed, the strike and boycott were quelled. Some workers that renounced the union were allowed to return to work. Although the public was generally opposed to the boycott, the strike also tarnished the Pullman brand. Pullman died in 1897 and had his grave sealed in a block of concrete and steel to prevent desecration of his body.[13]
Aftermath
The Pullman Strike changed the American labor landscape. It was an example of the power a union could have against an industry, but it also affirmed the right of the government to intervene against strikes, particularly after the Supreme Court upheld the actions in in re Debs (1895). The Illinois Supreme Court forced the Pullman Company to sell its non-industrial holdings in 1898 and residents were given the first option on purchasing their houses. Most of the land was sold off by 1907.[13]
Under second president Robert Todd Lincoln, Pullman cars were converted to all-steel construction. This required a $5 million investment in remodeling the shops. Despite a brief labor strike in 1904, the Pullman Company restored its place as a leading railcar provider. However, the town never recovered its identity as a company town as employees moved to newer neighborhoods nearby.[13]
Agreement with Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
The A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum is in the Pullman District
Unionization of African American workers began in 1925, when the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was founded by A. Philip Randolph in New York City. Forty-four percent of the Pullman workforce was porters, making Pullman the nation's largest employer of African Americans. A landmark agreement was reached between the two parties in 1937, becoming the first major labor agreement between a company and an African American union. The NAACP lauded the contract and recognized it as an important step in increasing and improving the "respect, recognition and influence, and economic advance" of African Americans.[13]
Competition and the end of rail
The decline of rail usage in favor of cars and aviation led to the decline of the Pullman Company. After a major downsizing in the 1940s, the Pullman Company was largely closed by 1957. It officially ceased operations in 1969. The south wing of the factory and the erecting shops were later used by several steel companies.[13]
Landmarks
Administration and factory complex
The manufacturing center of Pullman, the Administration and Factory Complex were unusually ornate industrial buildings. They were designed to sit in a park-like setting, overlooking the artificial Lake Vista, which was a cooling reservoir for the Corliss steam engine. The buildings, several hundred feet long, were well-lit and ventilated. The main facade, mirrored in the lake, faced the Illinois Central tracks, and thus was one of the first buildings a visitor would see. Beman designed the structures with a linear manufacturing process in mind, making the factory an early adapter of the assembly line.[14]
Hotel Florence, named for Pullman's daughter, was opened on November 1, 1881. Intended to showcase the town to visitors, the hotel featured fifty rooms and the only bar in the community. Built at a cost of $130,000, it grew to 23,000 square feet (2,100m2) after an addition was constructed in 1914. A suite was kept for Pullman on the second floor for when he visited the factory. Each floor presented a different class of service, with the most opulent rooms on the second floor and more modest accommodations on the fourth.[15] It recently completed an extensive rehabilitation, mainly of its first floor and basement. The annex has not been rehabilitated and is closed.[13]
Preservation and rehabilitation
A proposal in 1960 to demolish the community in favor of a new industrial park galvanized residents to form the Pullman Civic Organization (PCO) to support its preservation.[13] On October 8, 1969, the remaining 300-acre (120ha) neighborhood was recognized by the National Park Service (NPS) with a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The next year, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark District, a site deemed to have "exceptional value to the nation."[16] The southern portion was locally recognized as a Chicago Landmark on October 16, 1972. A second Chicago Landmark, for the northern portion, was created in 1993, then merged into the other landmark in 1999. The PCO provided grants to help residents restore their houses, and a non-profit called the Historic Pullman Foundation purchased several key buildings for rehabilitation in the 1970s.[13]
The Entrance to the Pullman National Monument and State Historic Site
The State of Illinois purchased Hotel Florence and the Administration and Factory Complex in 1991 and incorporated it into a state historic site through the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. However, a 1998 arson destroyed much of the latter building before it could open to visitors. It is now in the process of reconstruction.[13] President Barack Obama designated Pullman as a national monument, thus a component of the NPS, on February 19, 2015.[10] It became the first unit of the NPS in Chicago.[17] In 2015, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects published a report on development for the park.[18]
In 2017, the National Park Service approved a plan to restore the clock tower building and turn it into a visitor center. The plan also calls for reconstructing the main gateway between the factory and housing areas. Toxic soil had to be first removed from the site. The soil was contaminated by waste materials when the factory was in use.[19] The new visitor center opened on Labor Day, September 6, 2021. In attendance were local and national officials, including Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. The site opened to the public after the restoration of the Administration Building.[20]
Pullman National Historical Park partners with the non-profit 501(c)(3) American Passenger Rail Heritage Foundation to provide on-board educational programs for train passengers on the South Shore Line.[22][23] On select Saturdays, Interpretive Guides with the APRHF Rail Rangers ride roundtrip between Millennium Station and South Bend Airport station to provide narration about the park and the other sites passengers see outside their window.[24][25]
In popular culture
In the feature animation film The Polar Express (2004), which references several pieces of railroad history, the look of buildings on the square at the North Pole were inspired by Pullman Factory.[26]
Notes
1 2 "Pullman District". City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division. 2003. Archived from the original on June 7, 2007. Retrieved May 11, 2007.
↑ "Pullman Historic District". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2007.
George Mortimer Pullman was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town in Chicago 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 black men to staff the Pullman cars, known as Pullman porters, who provided elite service and were compensated only in tips.
Eugene Victor Debs was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.
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 Chicago in spring 1894. When it failed, the ARU launched a national boycott against all trains that carried Pullman passenger cars. The nationwide railroad boycott that lasted from May 11 to July 20, 1894, was a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, the main labor unions, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages. Most of the factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the "company town" of Pullman just outside of Chicago. Jennie Curtis who lived in Pullman was president of seamstress union ARU LOCAL 269 gave a speech at the ARU convention urging people to strike. It was designed as a model community by its namesake founder and owner George Pullman.
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 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 development of mass production and takeover of rivals, the company developed a virtual monopoly on production and ownership of sleeper cars.
The American Railway Union (ARU) was briefly among the largest labor unions of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States. Launched at a meeting held in Chicago in February 1893, the ARU won an early victory in a strike on the Great Northern Railroad in the summer of 1894. This successful strike was followed by the bitter 1894 Pullman Strike in which government troops and the power of the judiciary were enlisted against the ARU, ending with the jailing of the union's leadership for six months in 1895 and effectively crushing the organization. The group's blacklisted and dispirited remnants finally disbanded the organization via amalgamation into the Social Democracy of America (SDA) at its founding convention in June 1897.
Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids, commonly referred to as 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 railway workers across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
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’ baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths, and serve passengers. Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased its United States operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. The Pullman Company also operated sleeping cars in Mexico from the 1880s until November 13, 1970. The term "porter" has been superseded in modern American usage by "sleeping car attendant", with the former term being considered "somewhat derogatory".
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 recreation facilities.
The Illinois Central Railroad, sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Another line connected Chicago west to Sioux City, Iowa (1870), while smaller branches reached Omaha, Nebraska (1899) from Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), from Cherokee, Iowa. The IC also ran service to Miami, Florida, on trackage owned by other railroads.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) cut wages for the third time in a year. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first strike that spread across multiple states in the U.S. The strike finally ended 52 days later, after it was put down by unofficial militias, the National Guard, and federal troops. Because of economic problems and pressure on wages by the railroads, workers in numerous other states, from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, into Illinois and Missouri, also went out on strike. An estimated 100 people were killed in the unrest across the country. In Martinsburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other cities, workers burned down and destroyed both physical facilities and the rolling stock of the railroads—engines and railroad cars. Some locals feared that workers were rising in revolution, similar to the Paris Commune of 1871, while others joined their efforts against the railroads.
Solon Spencer Beman was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois and best known as the architect of the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex, as well as Chicago's renowned Fine Arts Building. Several of his other largest commissions, including the Pullman Office Building, Pabst Building, and Grand Central Station in Chicago, have since been demolished. Beman designed numerous Christian Science churches and influenced the design of countless more.
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 Preservation Agency.
The Buffalo switchmen's strike was a two-week strike in August 1892 by railroad workers employed by three railroads in Buffalo, New York. The strike collapsed after two weeks when 8,000 state militia entered the town and other unions refused to support the workers.
Prairie Avenue is a north–south street on the South Side of Chicago, which historically extended from 16th Street in the Near South Side to the city's southern limits and beyond. The street has a rich history from its origins as a major trail for horseback riders and carriages. During the last three decades of the 19th century, a six-block section of the street served as the residence of many of Chicago's elite families and an additional four-block section was also known for grand homes. The upper six-block section includes part of the historic Prairie Avenue District, which was declared a Chicago Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Two Brothers Roundhouse, formerly the Walter Payton Roundhouse, America's Historical Roundhouse, and Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Roundhouse and Locomotive Shop is a historic building converted to a restaurant in Aurora, Illinois. It was originally constructed in 1856 as a roundhouse for the Chicago & Aurora Railroad and served in this capacity until 1974. It was abandoned until 1995, when a group of investors led by Walter Payton purchased it and converted the building to an entertainment complex. Its most recent tenant is Two Brothers Brewing. The building is the oldest limestone roundhouse in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Midwest Rail Rangers is a non-profit organization specializing with on-board educational programs to railroad passengers in the Midwestern United States with information regarding history, ecology, and geology.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
