In late spring and early summer of 1894, the workers from the Pullman Palace Car company went on strike to gain fair treatment by the company. However, several local newspapers in Chicago, Illinois covered the story of the strike. There were two main newspapers covering the story. First being the Chicago Tribune that sided with big business in this instance the owners of the railway companies and George M. Pullman. The second newspaper was the Chicago Time, which exhibited a bias towards the American Railways Union and the Pullman workers. One possible problem was the integrity of the events with conflicting biases from both papers. Each newspaper had conflicting interests and possible hidden agendas from either side to develop a continuing …show more content…
story to increase sales and sympathies to either side. It was this type of Yellow Journalism, which escalated events (in the public's eye), based upon sensationalism and promoting heightened emotions of their readers. It is by close examination of the newspaper articles and the facts from both papers will show it was a combination of yellow journalism, corrupt business, and mob mentality from the heightened emotions from the negative accounts from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Times. On Thursday evening, May 10, 1894, the grievance committee comprised of forty-six members from the different departments of the Pullman Palace Car company. The committee met at the Dewdrop Saloon, which lasted until the early hours of Friday morning of May 11, 1894, to gain a majority vote (42 to 4) to strike (64, 65). At 4:30 Friday morning, the committee sent a message, to all the employees, giving the results of the vote. It was for the workers to strike. The workers received the message while they were at work and by 10:00 am, the first fifteen hundred workers left their positions and returned home (64). By noon on May 11, 1894, only eight hundred workers returned to work after lunch (64, 65). Both newspapers broke the Pullman story on May 11, 1894. Their contents gave a tiny snippet into the reasoning behind the Pullman strike. The workers who were on strike stated it was the lack of an antiquate wage that prompted the workers to meet and vote to strike (65). The Chicago Tribune reported George M. Pullman that he was willing for the company's accounts were available for review (64). It was their desire to have a livable wage that drove the men and women to leave work on that fated Friday of 1894. Pullman's workers wanted a return to the wages of 1893 when the workers received a livable wage unlike the wages they were earning during the first five months of 1894. On May 15, 1894, the Chicago tribune buried its report on the Pullman strike on page eight in their paper to minimize their commentary of the events behind the of a committee of grocery men from Kensington and they refused to extend credit further to the people. The placement of the article by a pro business paper gave some foundation to the idea that the Tribune was a puppet or a tool used to play down the negative image of the business owners. However, it chose to promote the ideas that the strikers were evil people because of their desire to earn a livable wage to house and feed their families. The common worker received between $1.40 and $1.00 for a full day's labor (66). It was, considered; a livable wage at that time was $2.00 a day, this provided food and lodging for their families, which allowed a little extra money to provide amenities to the home (66). The Chicago Time who sided with the Pullman strikers reported on the same day about the contradicting messages expressed by President Pullman of the Pullman Palace Car company. Pullman said from the beginning of the strike that the company was running at a loss and unable to pay the employees more (64). Except, the Time reported that the company was working in the black and was able to pay its shareholders a two percent gain on their stocks for that quarter (66). The Times ran this article on their first page in comparison to the Chicago Tribune running their article on the eighth. Both papers told of the lack of a livable wage, but each paper used their own personal agenda to express their views. Each paper used their pages to sway the people to choose a side, either the business owners or the workers. Also, another thought was, did the owners pay the Tribune to bury the stories on the back pages of the paper to keep people and the newsboys from making the strike a bigger issue to the people of Chicago. Throughout the following weeks, the news articles moved from being headline, first page news, to burying the articles in the back pages of the Chicago Tribune. The only articles placed on the first page of the Tribune focused on the negative sensationalist topics. One example was the article published June 26, 1894; titled American Railway Union Begins Its Fight on Pullman (67). It is their use of exciting and attention seeking headlines, which allowed harsh feeling to develop in the readers of the Tribune. It was their intentions to keep the public's feelings to remain agitated with the horrific and inflammatory articles written. Another such article appeared June 28, 1894; Debs is a Dictator, which had the subtitle His War on the Railroads is Waged Effectively (68). This article's title was developed with the intention to focus the mindset of the people to viewing the American Railroads Union (ARU) as being a terrorist organization meant to stop all rail travel public of commercial. Followed a few days later by another headline developed to start the public's emotions to enrage and build to a citywide fear of destruction and violence. It was titled Mods Bent on Ruin, which filled the heads of the readers with visions of destruction, but violent attacks against workers and managers (70). The next article, which is under scrutiny published July 7, 1894 by the Tribune, titled Yards Fire Swept with another inflammatory subtitle Hundreds of Freight Cars, Loaded and Empty, Burn: Rioters prevent Firemen from Saving the Property (72). Any headline that had the word fire demanded instant attention, since fire was the greatest fear in any metropolitan area. The last article by the Chicago Tribune written July 7, 1894, which downplayed the final events of the strike, entitled With a Dull Thud: the Strike Collapses with Wonderful Rapidity. After several weeks and emotion stirring headlines, the final headline was anticlimactic and focused how the AUR was slowly falls apart around Eugene V. Debs president of the American Railroad Union. This article placed on the first page of the Chicago Tribune was lackluster in its portrayal of the events at the end of the strike. The opposing newspaper, Chicago Times, which showed a bias towards the Pullman workers and the ARU were front-page news during the Strike.
It was the focus of the articles to counter balance the stories printed by the Tribune. One of the articles printed May 15, 1894, titled Skims off the Fat, which exposed the profits earned by George Pullman's company after he claimed that his companies were running in the red (66). However, the Tribune only printed the portion of the facts that were important to spinning the story of a failing Pullman Palace Car company. One possible thought of this type of overt misrepresentation of the facts could be a corrupt newspaper, which received payment from the owners of all the businesses associated with the railroad industries. The Times also countered the Tribune on June 28, 1894, in their article Not a Wheel Turns in the West (69). It focused on how the boycott of all trains leaving Chicago that were pulling Pullman sleeper or dinner cars were left sitting in the rail yards because the workers were refusing to handle any trains with Pullman cars attached. The article also spoke about the use of scabs (non-union workers) to replace the workers who refused to handle the Pullman cars (66). Most of the other articles presented by the Times told of the plight of the AUR and Pullman workers. One article in particular that corresponded with the same event that happened on July 1, 1894, which involved the derailment of the "Rock Island train No. 19 heading to Kansas City and St. Paul" (71). The Times minimized the event by glossing over the sequence of events on that rainy summer night of 1894. While the Tribune went into detail of the derailment of the train and the state of the strikers protesting the use of Pullman cars, the Times spoke little about the events except to state that a few people had bruises and covered in mud (71). However, the Times did focus on the event of James Mervin shaking hands with Mayor John
Zacharias and finally set bail for five thousand dollars, which he refused to accept the cash raised by his friends and co-strikers (71). Another major variation of events reported by the Chicago Times printed on July 7, 1894, devaluated the actions of the strikers at the rail yard and the indifference of the police officers. The article told of how the police were not interested in the destruction of the property in the southwest section of Chicago (71). One theory to the possible behavior of the police was the interference by a group of people with either the power or money to bribe the police to stand by and let the event escalate. Another theory because of the contradictory reports people were upset with how the workers were mistreated by their employers and chose to take matters into their own hands. The events of that happened during the Pullman Riots of 1894 were shown in two very different versions by the Tribune and Times. Events were covered and written with bias from both newspapers. Yellow journalism appeared near the turn of the twentieth century either to promote paper sales or to promote their ideologies based on their personal beliefs, or who paid the most money to your paper. Newspaper owners had their own agendas and promoted events to increase news sales. The riots of 1894 were a platform used to advance others into positions of power. One paper wrote about the unfair treatment of the workers and the readers who
The Pullman Strike was a disturbing event in Chicago, Illinois history. It occurred because of the way George Pullman, founder of the Pullman Palace Car Company treated his workers. George Pullman was born in 1831, in upstate New York, he was the son of a carpenter. He learned carpentry himself and moved to Chicago, Illinois in the 1850s. From there, he opened up his own railroad company called the Pullman Palace Car Company and it took off from there. During the Civil war he began creating a new kind of passenger car that would allow passengers to enjoy themselves. It was a new line of luxury railroad cars featuring comfortable seating, restaurants, and improved sleeping accommodations. Because low paid railroad workers, led by Eugene Debs, took a stand against George Pullman by boycotting and
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
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
By the summer of 1877, at least three million Americans - an estimated 25 percent of the nation's workforce -were searching for employment. That May, the Pennsylvania Railroad had imposed its second 10 percent wage cut in two years.A few weeks later, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad b and o announced ten percent pay cuts for workers making more than a dollar a day-including comparable cuts for officials-and at about the same time announced payment of a 10 percent dividend. For b and o workers, this was too much-it was the second 10 percent wage cut in a year.On July 16, frustrated workers and sympathizers blocked the movement of b and o trains in Baltimore, Maryland, and one hundred miles west, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Word of the strike action spread quickly. Workers in Philadelphia, Reading, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Columbia, Harrisburg, Altoona, Johnstown, Derry, Washington, Erie, and Pittsburgh halted all commercial train traffic. Strike organizers in Pittsburgh struggled to maintain
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.
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
Tensions between union supporters and management began mounting in the years preceding the strike. In April of 1994, the International Union led a three-week strike against major tracking companies in the freight hauling industry in attempts to stop management from creating $9 per hour part-time positions. This would only foreshadow battles to come between management and union. Later, in 1995, teamsters mounted an unprecedented national union campaign in attempts to defeat the labor-management “cooperation” scheme that UPS management tried to establish in order to weaken the union before contract talks (Witt, Wilson). This strike was distinguished from other strikes of recent years in that it was an offensive strike, not a defensive one. It was a struggle in which the union was prepared, fought over issues which it defined, and one which relied overwhelmingly on the efforts of the members themselves (http://www.igc.org/dbacon/Strikes/07ups.htm).
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
Labor unions in the late 1800's set out to improve the lives of frequently abused workers. Volatile issues like the eight-hour workday, ridiculously low pay and unfair company town practices were often the fuses that lit explosive conflicts between unions and monopolistic industrialists. Some of the most violent and important conflicts of the time were the Haymarket Affair and the Pullman strike. Each set out to with similar goals and both ended with horrifying consequences.
Furthermore, in 1894, the Pullman Strike occurred where a nationwide railroad strike occurred. George Pullman basically owned the town and controlled the cost of rent and food, so when he lowered wages and raised prices, the workers called for a strike. Eugene Debbs was asked to lead the strike leading to the formation of the American Railroad Workers Union (ARWU). Debbs told the workers to not work any Pullman cars on the railroad. Since the railroads had a huge impact on the national economy, President Cleveland intervened and got the National Guard to run the trains and ordered them to crush the strike.
The period in American history between 1900 and 1920 was a very turbulent one. Civil unrest was brewing as a result of many pressures placed upon the working class. Although wealth was accumulating at an astonishing rate in America, most people at the lower economic levels were not benefiting from any of it. Worst of all for them, the federal government seemed to be on the side of the corporations. Their helpless situation and limited options is why the coal strike of 1902 is so important.
" While 8 hour day strike movement was generally peaceful, there was some acts of violence that set the labor movement back. The McCormick Harvester Company in Chicago learned ahead of time of a planned strike and so locked out all its employees who held union cards. Because of this fights broke out and police opened fire on the union members killing four of them. A public rally to protest these killings at Haymarket Square drew a large crowd. When a bomb went off, killing seven police officers and wounding fifty more, the police began to fire into the crowd and several more people were killed and about two-hundred wounded.
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 my paper I examined an article by Alexander Saxton. In his writing he discussed the formation of unions in the Alabama coalfields. The make up of the coal unions were very similar to the make-up of America and unions today. This was very peculiar to have such a conglomeration of workers because of the racial sentiment amongst the races of that day. The workers in the coalfields had the same background generally, except for their racial roots. These miners were brought toget...
This paper takes a look at the ways in which the ideas of Fordism and Taylorism helped the success of the U.S motor vehicle industry. The motor vehicle industry has changed the fundamental ideas on the process of manufacturing and probably more expressively on how humans work together to create value.