Day 244: The Train Man

     Anybody who has ever taken a cross-country trip on Amtrak(and if you haven't done so yet, I highly recommend that you do so) has experienced the creature comforts of high-class train travel.   Personal bedrooms, dining service, all of the accommodations necessary to make a 50+hour train trip bearable.  One of the men that we have to thank for this innovation is named George Pullman.

     In the early 1860s, Pullman was a young engineer who had moved to Chicago to grab a piece of the burgeoning railroad market, as the city was quickly becoming the railroad hub of America.  In between having his own company and helping to elevate the city of Chicago(yes, that is just as fascinating as it sounds, and yes, there will be an entry on it later), Pullman was working on something else.  In 1864, he came out with the Pullman Sleeping Car, the first of its kind.  In the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's 1865 assassination, Pullman arranged for the President's body to be transported to Springfield for burial aboard one of his sleeper cars.

     This proved fruitful for Pullman, who started to receive thousands of orders for new cars.  In 1867, he rolled out his most ambitious project yet, the "Hotel on Wheels".  With sleeper service, meals that rivaled the classiest restaurants of the day, and amenities even including mending of clothing, the Hotel on Wheels soon became the gold standard for train travel across the country.  To properly serve the clientele that Pullman hoped to welcome aboard his "Palace cars", Pullman started hiring former slaves to work as porters on the cars.  And he kept hiring them, all the way up until the Pullman Company wound up being the single largest employer of African-Americans in the Post-Civil War era.  In 1871 he teamed with Andrew Carnegie to bail out the Union Pacific railroad(who would come into play with Metra in the 1990s).

     By 1880, the company was ready to expand, and so Mr. Pullman bought 4,000 acres of land 14 Miles south of the city on land belonging to the Illinois Central.  It was here where he would build his most enduring legacy.  In addition to a new factory, the plot of land also contained an entire self-contained community for the workers who worked at the plant.  The neighborhood had everything: churches, parks, theaters, libraries, and the iron fist of George Pullman himself.  He set rigid standards for behavior, and was not afraid to expel workers with only 10 days notice.  Some contemporary critics alleged that Otto von Bismarck himself was a kinder ruler than Pullman.

     Actually, the cold-heartedness of Pullman lends itself well to a story that I want to tell later this week, as well as blending with this week's theme.  You see, in celebration of Labor Day tomorrow, Chicago 365 is commemorating the occasion with Labor Week.  Every day this week through Friday, I will be writing about a different labor-related vignette from Chicago's history.  Given this city's long and illustrious history with organized labor, this endeavor should not be too difficult.