A Working People's Tour Through Historic Pullman

Me, front row, second on the right. Thanks to the Teamsters Joint Council 25 Women's Committee‎ for joining us.

This past Saturday, I went on a historic tour lead by the Illinois Labor History Society Executive Director, Stefanee Parks-Asche. It was a beautiful day to be walking around and the town's history easily came alive as the original structures were well preserved.

Exec. Director Stefanee Asche,
speaking to the living conditions of
Pullman employees

The Town of Pullman was founded and created in 1880 as America's first planned industrial town by George M. Pullman of the Pullman Palace Car Company (Historic Pullman Foundation). Pullman built the town as a home to his workers and his family.

The strike broke out in 1894, as the finances of the worker became impossible. That year America was experiencing an economic depression. Pullman, thinking about his bottom line, cut wages, sometimes by 50%. He cut wages, but the rent remained the same (rent which he collected).

There were three women attached to this strike, the first was 18 year old Jennie Curtis. She was an upholstery seamstress for the Pullman Company who joined the protest because she found three-fourths of her wages being withheld by the company for her father’s back-rent, after his death. She joined the American Railway Union and became the president of the girls' union at Pullman. (Curtis' Testimony, 1894) She said, “We are not just fighting for ourselves, but for decent conditions for workers everywhere.” (Early Women Unionists)

Jane Addams, one of my personal heroes, conducted an investigation at Pullman, using her principle of sympathetic understanding. She visited the striking workers, eating supper with some of the women workers, touring the tenement housing, and asking questions. She testified before the United States Strike Commission in August of that year. She had found the workers' conditions unfair verging on deplorable. (Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy)

Lastly, Mother Jones also played her part. The strike which started in Pullman was now a nation-wide event. Historian, Rosemary Feurer, marks this as the moment which Mary Jones became "mother". She sought to save the life of a young California ARU activist, S. D. Worden, who was falsely accused of derailing a troop train during the strike. He was sentenced to be hanged. Not only did she join the effort in Pullman by making sure that railway workers across the country joined the strike, she found her voice and became known as the “Mother of the ARU,” travelling 15,000 miles to collect signatures petitioning for a pardon. She took the workers' petitions to the White House, refusing to leave until she could meet with President Cleveland. Worden ’s life was saved. (The Mother Jones Museum) Worden was one among many who were accused of rioting. She claimed that it was common knowledge that any destruction of railway property came from hired "hoodlums," not strikers. In her autobiography she reflected that in these early days, she learned that "...labor must bear the cross for others' sins, must be the vicarious sufferer for the wrongs that others do." (Autobiography, 4)

After standing for 117 years as a Pullman landmark,
the Clock Tower and Administration Building
were seriously damaged by a tragic fire
set by an arsonist on December 1, 1998.
This is mostly reconstructed to look as it would have in 1880. 

Federal troops eventually ended the national strike in July, but it’s significance is still felt: Labor Day was created as a result.

There are two ways to tell the story of Pullman and it is important to hear both. I started the day from the perspective of the worker. However, the tour ended with a separate tour of the clock tower lead by a park ranger. The people of Pullman like to remember George Pullman's vision of utopia. Public art in the area asks the question, "What is your vision of a contemporary Utopian community?"

The historic district of Pullman has is now a city, state, and national landmark and is now protected by the U.S. National Parks Service thanks to President Obama.