George Pullman was not always believed to be a cruel boss. George Pullman started off believing that anyone could be successful if they worked hard enough. But as his business grew, he took this belief too far, furthering his own company by working his employees hard, treating his employees like slaves. There were many factors included in how the Pullman strike started. George Pullman and the company’s treatment of employees, how the town of Pullman, Illinois reacted to their treatment, other strikes that led up to the Pullman employee unhappiness and their reaction, the Pullman Strike.
From a young age, George Pullman had a very positive attitude towards life. He was born in 1831 near Buffalo, New York (Burgan). Pullman was one of ten children and his family was not rich. His dad was a mechanic and owned a farm where he grew up. While George Pullman quit school at the age of 14 to start working, he still worked on his education at night. His initial job was with his brother doing carpentry, allowing him to learn a new craft. As he got older he was able to help his brother with the carpenting business (Laughlin). But George grew restless.
After working with his brother, George moved to Chicago. In Chicago George helped rebuild the houses that were being eroded by Lake Michigan (Laughlin). He believed in the American dream, that anyone who was hardworking, and inventive could become a great success (Laughlin). He was only 30 when he arrived in Chicago and had high aspirations for his life.(Burgan). On the train ride their, Pullman had difficulty sleeping because of how uncomfortable the seats were. Because of his discomfort he came up with his first idea, the idea of a sleeping car that would eventually become the main product...
... middle of paper ...
...Negligence; Employee Defined. 45 USCA. Sec. 51. West, 1908 and Supp. 1939. Print.
Limitations on Duty Hours of Dispatching Service Employees. 49 USCS. Sec. 21105. LexisNexis, 2012 and Supp. 1994. Print.
Pullman State Historic Site. Pullman State Historic Site, Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. .
“The Pullman Strike” [“The Pullman Strike”]. Illinois Periodicals Online. Ed. Drew Vandecreek, Jack Hendricks, and Brian ` Conant. Northern Illinois University Libraries, 3 Dec. 2003. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. .
Steven. “The Pullman Strike, 1894 - Jeremy Brecher.” Libcom .com. libcom.com, 23 June 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2013. .
White, Richard. “Strike.” Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. N. pag. Print.
During the Railroad Strike of 1877, when large crowds in Baltimore attempted to attack militia breaking up the strike, President Hayes got word of the uprising and personally sent his troops to quell it (DOC B). Many witnesses of the strike used Yellow Journalism to make it seem as if Communists were causing the strike through the use of political cartoons in newspapers, such as “Always killing the goose that lays the golden egg” (DOC C), where the strike was purposefully invalidated to break up the labor movement. Nevertheless, the largeness of the uprising made strikes become more widely-known, causing employers to be slower to slash wages in fear of a bigger
An employee strike might seem like a modern technique but it’s moderately, if not fully, based on an actual event in Texas in 1883. This book illustrates the importance of the changing political, social, and economic factors that shaped this country. It shows the devastation that comes with it; people defying and protesting the change that contradicts from their way of living. It also brings out the importance of economic laws and barriers that prevent large businesses from yielding too much power and exploiting the public. The novel not only has some of the elements of western fiction, rich and big against the poor and small, justice serving at the end, and the main protagonist wearing the heroic sheriff’s badge but also brings a great deal of recreation, intuition, and exhilaration. It also provides moments of bonding and congregation as the degradation by big ranchers made the cowboys join together and do the inconceivable – go on a strike. It has an unexpected turn of events from a quarrel over cow brand to a gripping courtroom
James B. Weaver illustrates the true damage of monopolies on the public in “A Call to Action” (Document 4). Weaver, a two-time candidate for president of the United States, addresses the meticulous tactics which trusts and monopolies use to increase their profit at the expense of the public and asserts that their main weapons are, ”threats, intimidation, bribery, fraud, wreck, and pillage.” Arguments such as Weaver’s, suggest and end to the end of the laissez-faire capitalism that monopolies are sustained upon. Laissez-faire capitalism is essentially a system where the government takes no position in the affairs of businesses and does not interfere, no matter what harm is being done. This ideology dominated the business world of the century and allowed for vast unemployment, low wages, and impoverishment. Soon, laborers also begin to express their dismay with the way that such businesses are run and the treatment of workers in the railroad industry. An instance of this being the Pullman Strike of 1894. In 1894, laborers went on a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company; they issued a statement regarding their strike in June (Document 6). Workers are repulsed by Pullman’s exertion of power over several institutions and how his greed affects his competitors, who must reduce their wages to keep up with his businesses. This incident inspires many to take
I think that the significance of the Pullman Porters in American labor history is their long struggle to be recognized as a union and to for the first time collectively bargain with their employer. George Pullman was known for being strongly aggressive against employees who wanted to unionize. Employees were fired and in occasions thrown out of cars miles away from their homes as punishment for being caught wanting to form a union. Despite all these dangers The Pullman Porters were brave enough to stand for their rights. They formed The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925 led by A. Philip Randolph (Museum pamphlet). Thanks to
“Industrial unions dominated the landscape of the late nineteen century U.S. labor movement.” They gathered all level workers together without discrimination of gender, race, or nationality. They declared the eight-hour workday for the first time when normal work time should be 12. Low wage of workers caused the “Great Strike of 1877”, which began with railroad workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. After the “Great Strike”, industrial union started to
The unions resorted to many forms of tactics such as boycotts, picketing, and the less prominent “closed shop”. The most prevalent of these methods, however, was the formation of riots. During the late 19th century riots included: the Haymarket Square Riots (1886), the Homestead Lockout, and the Pullman Car Company strike. The Haymarket Square Riots of 1886 took place at the McCormick plant in Chicago, Illinois in response to the worker’s need for an eight hour workday. The first two days were innate, but the third day was where the the situation actually instigated the cause. The owner of the plant, McCormick, attempted to bring strikebreakers (scabs), and a battle had begun between the scabs and the strikers. The riot, wistfully, ended the lives of four men when the police began to attempt to impede and halter the situation. These four deaths initiated a chain reaction resulting in the calling for the revenge of the four men by German radical Johann Most. Despite Johann’s reaction, 200 more Chicago policemen ordered the remaining strikers to leave the area. In the crowd, in the moment, a homemade bomb was hurled leading in the death of one policeman; acting as a predecessor of events, this event lead to a shooting between the policemen and the strikers concluding with the death of four workers and seven more policemen; entirely approximately one hundred people were injured. The Haymarket Riots caused public opinion to turn against labor. The Homestead Lockout took place in Homestead, Pennsylvania at Andrew Carnegie’s steel plant and was instigated by Henry Clay Frick’s wage cut. In this riot workers walked out of the company and then Frick ordered company doors to be locked and trapped the workers inside. Employees rebelled and caused about 200 Pinkerton detectives to come up the river to protect company property and created a battle.
Well-known events took place amidst intense labor negotiations which included the Haymarket Riot and the Pullman Strike.
Pullman Palace Car Company made luxury railroad cars. The people who lived in the town of Pullman payed rent by deductions from their wages. The owner of the town and company George Pullman had workers’ wages get cut in addition to workers getting leadoff. Many people who worked for the company whose wages got cut had trouble affording the standard living costs in Pullman and were given “starvation wages.” The organization of the pissed off workers followed. The workers would go on a nationwide strike organized by the American Railway Union and was led by a man named Eugene debs. Eugene and his union was so powerful because they possessed the ability to paralyze the production of the railroad industry. George Pullman tried to hire people to break up the strike but ends up being unsuccessful. Federal troops were sent in and the court rules that workers must return back to work and the strike is ended.
In both cases unions became associated with violence, and the Federal Government always took sides with big businesses. However, The Pullman Car Strike was more damaging to unionism during the 19th century. In the Railroad Strike they damaged their reputations, but in the Pullman Strike the unions had taken away their most powerful bargaining technique, which was the strike. The union was also proved to be weak without their leader Eugene Debs, as they went back to work very soon after he was imprisoned taking the 20% wage cut as
Zinn, Howard. "The Great Railroad Strike, 1877." A People's History of the United States (2006). Article. 30 March 2014.
Spearman, Frank H. "The First Transcontinental Railroad." Harper's Monthly Magazine, Volume 109 2011: 711-20. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. .
1900, the second industrial revolution is at its peak. Andrew Carnegie has already created his steel empire, John D. Rockefeller’s has just retired from his job as owner and runner of the Standard Oil Company, Upton Saint Clair will publish The Jungle in 1906. The United States has successfully surpassed the rest of the world in industry, but at a price. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Homestead Massacre of 1892 represent the extreme dissatisfaction workers have with their employment, and the conversely brutal responses of companies. No state or federal laws existed to protect the workers; workers found it impossible to hold companies responsible for injuries or deaths. Resentment against blacks and immigrants is high, because they
Roark, James L. et al., eds. The American Promise: A Compact, Vol. I: To 1877. 3rd edition. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs and Jon Gjerde. edit., Major Problems in American History: Volume 1 to 1877. Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.
The Young Reader's Companion to American History. Ed. John A. Garraty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. 384+. Print.