October 19: On This Day in World History … briefly
In 1867 Pullman set up the Pullman Palace Car Company to lease his cars to the railroad companies and built the town of Pullman to house his employees.
1897: Sleeping car inventor dies
US industrialist and inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, George Mortimer Pullman, died at the age of 66 in Chicago. The first and most famous of the sleeping cars that would become synonymous with his name was ‘Pioneer’, built in 1863 with the help of his friend Ben Field.
He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. His Pullman Company also hired African-American men to staff the Pullman cars, who became known and widely respected as Pullman porters, providing elite service.
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 for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike 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 ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town, which became a neighbourhood of the city of Chicago
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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