In the last decades of the 1800s, the distinction between wealthy Americans and the mass of citizens became stark. The men and women who toiled in factories faced long hours, harsh conditions, meager wages, and frequent bouts of unemployment. The tiny cohort who controlled the nation’s capital enjoyed refined leisure, attentive servants, and mansions modeled on castles. They were no longer embarrassed to consider themselves members of a privileged class.
George Pullman helped set the tone for the era Mark Twain had labeled the Gilded Age. His home on Chicago’s fashionable Prairie Avenue, “the sunny street that held the sifted few,” proclaimed his status. It included a two-hundred-seat theater, a billiard room, a bowling alley, a pipe organ, and a palm room with a leaded-glass dome. Among the most extravagant spenders of the age, he and his wife, Hattie, threw parties there for four hundred guests.
Hoping to bring some East Coast sophistication to the Middle West, Hattie sponsored lectures and readings to introduce society women to Shakespeare. She arranged for dance lessons in her ballroom. Among those practicing the waltz, polka, and quadrille there were Robert Todd Lincoln and Frederick Dent Grant, both the sons of presidents, and Civil War hero Philip Sheridan, who repeatedly stepped on his partner’s toes.
In the 1870s, during the administration of President Ulysses S.Grant, the Pullmans spent two weeks in the White House, where Hattie helped First Lady Julia with a formal reception. George had hired Grant’s secretary, General Horace Porter, as a Pullman vice president. He took on Robert Lincoln as his personal lawyer. President Benjamin Harrison had paid Pullman the enviable compliment over lunch of asking the name of his tailor.
The cultivation of politicians was another facet of Pullman’s business acumen that anticipated the practice of modern corporations. He hired ex-military men, hobnobbed with presidents, and lent private cars to influential government figures for a purpose: to cultivate goodwill and attract favors for the Pullman’s Palace Car Company.
Although congenial with friends and a polished salesman, the sleeping-car magnate had a reputation for being remote and dictatorial. He liked to spend time alone—he kept a suite at the Hotel Florence in his model town as a retreat. One of his office workers noted that “I never knew a man so reserved.” Pullman, he felt, would have liked to treat people as friends, “but he couldn’t. He just didn’t know how.”
A neighbor called Pullman “one of the most frigid, pompous autocrats I have ever seen.” When riled, Pullman addressed underlings with a sneer of cold command, “about as hot,” one said, “as an ice crusher in the winter out on the lake.”
An exaggerated correctness suited Pullman. He wore a dark Prince Albert coat even in summer, a vest, striped trousers, and patent leather shoes. Every morning he arrived at the Pullman building in a polished Victoria pulled by blooded horses and driven by a coachman in livery.
For lunch he typically repaired to the Chicago Club, two blocks down Michigan Avenue from his office. His companions often included his good friend Marshall Field, the meat tycoon Philip Armour, and other grandees of Chicago commerce. They occupied what came to be known as the “millionaires’ table.”
Armour once gave a summary of his outlook on life that would have drawn nods from his colleagues. “I have no other interest in life but my business … I do not love the money. What I do love is the getting of it. All these years of my life I have put into this work, and now it is my life and I cannot give it up.”
Embracing the customs of the nation’s moneyed upper classes, Pullman maintained a seasonal residence in Long Branch, New Jersey. This home on the Atlantic shore was not far from President Grant’s own summer cottage. Pullman built another vacation home on one of New York’s Thousand Islands, a stone bastion he named Castle Rest and dedicated to his mother.
During the spring of 1894, in the midst of the Coxey movement and the Great Northern strike, Pullman boarded his private car to seek a brief respite in the East. From the seashore he was able to commute to his New York office and in the evenings listen to the whisper of the surf from his “cottage,” a palatial pagoda festooned with porches, porticos, and awnings.
When he returned to Chicago, talk of aggrieved employees and a possible strike erased whatever ease Pullman had found at the shore. On May 4, he and his wife went out to Pullman to tour the model town. He saw nothing amiss. The few men he had contact with were respectful, as usual. Works manager Harvey Middleton expressed no alarm.
* * *
On Monday morning, May 7, 1894, forty-one men representing the Pullman employees put on Sunday suits and bowler hats and rode uptown through a pristine spring day. They were accompanied by Jennie Curtis and four other women who represented the females employed in the company’s sewing and laundry departments. ARU organizer George Howard came along as an adviser. They all filed into the unfamiliar, fortress-like Pullman Building on Michigan Avenue opposite the Art Institute.
Thomas Wickes, the company’s second vice president, was a cultured Englishman with steel-gray hair, an imperial mustache and chin patch, and an affable manner. At forty-nine, he was one of a new breed of professionals who specialized in managing a corporation. He had worked with George Pullman for twenty-six years and knew instinctively what his superior wanted. His suave manner and reputation for honesty and good judgment made him well liked within the company.
Needing a pattern to emulate in constructing management bureaucracies, the owners of corporations had modeled them on the military. They formed a hierarchical chain of command and separated line and staff functions. The managers at each level were answerable to and sought the approval of those higher up. The system rewarded decisions that maximized profits and discouraged those based on sentiment. The ultimate “boss” was capital, and capital had no tears to flow.
The workers who sat down with Wickes told him that their principal complaint was pay. Car builder Thomas Heathcoate, now the spokesman for the employees, told Wickes that the men saw no reason why they should not receive the same scale that had been in effect a year earlier. The work was the same; the output was the same. Their rents, too high to begin with, had not changed. They wanted double time for working on Sunday. And why was a wall being erected along the east side of the shops? Why was the company said to have hired extra guards?
Wickes listened. His manner was conciliatory. He was sorry, he said, but the car-building operations were not making money. The company was only keeping the plant open in order to give the men work. With the severe slump in business, it would have been more profitable to close the works over the winter. If he gave in to their pay demands, the firm would lose $20,000 on the recent Long Island Rail Road contract alone. It was impossible.
Heathcoate replied that if the plant had closed, the men could have moved out of Pullman, avoided its steep rents, and found jobs elsewhere. Wickes said the residents owed $70,000 in back rent and had not been “pushed” to pay it. One man spoke up and said he had been pushed. After deduction of rent, he had earned only $2 for two weeks’ work. Two dollars to feed eight children.
Heathcoate emphasized the seriousness of the situation. He was himself fifty-eight years old—the gray in his hair and mustache testified to his thirty-five years as a car builder. He paid $17 a month for a five-room house that he could have had for $8 in a village just outside Pullman. He could barely afford to feed his family. Buying clothes was out of the question. The well-dressed Wickes pointed out that the times were extraordinary—the company had $4 million invested in idle Palace Cars that were depreciating in the company’s yard.
One man suggested that the matter be decided by arbitration. Some of the others, suspicious of the process, frowned him down. Arbitration inevitably meant compromise. The idea of a strike was raised. George Howard jumped in to discourage such talk. No, the purpose of the American Railway Union was to prevent strikes, not foment them.
Some of their grievances were personal. Heathcoate complained about the foremen in the plant, many of whom were incompetent, wasteful, and tyrannical toward the men. Plant manager Middleton did nothing to rein them in. The men declared that they had trusted the former manager, H. H. Sessions, who understood the business. If he had been forced to bid low to get a job, they said, they were willing to “work for lower wages to help him, but we can not help the present management.”
Wickes said that it was hardly in the company’s interests to retain abusive or inefficient supervisors. The employees knew Mr. Pullman’s reputation for fairness. The company would be glad to investigate any allegation of abuse. All the committee had to do was to put in writing the incidents they wanted looked into and he would personally see that each was examined. The meeting ended on this positive note. Wickes invited the representatives to return in two days, bringing their written complaints.
* * *
On Wednesday, the Pullman employees repeated their trek to the city center. In the corporate offices, Vice President Wickes was joined by plant manager Harvey Middleton and several department heads. For two hours, Heathcoate and the other representatives documented their complaints about the shop supervisors. They said that foremen routinely used foul language, showed favoritism, and set arbitrary piecework rates. Wickes took notes, asked questions, and promised to investigate. He again dismissed talk of any pay increase. No, that was impossible. Nor could rents be adjusted.
One man said if the company was actually operating at a loss to keep them employed “we will stand by it through thick and thin.” But the workers doubted it was true.
Finally, executing a bit of stagecraft, Wickes announced that Mr. Pullman would join them. The men’s eyes widened as the potentate who controlled from a distance virtually every aspect of their lives strode into the room. Jennie Curtis examined with practiced eyes his impeccable clothing, the fine sewing and rich fabric. His manner combined the congenial with the imperious. He was a supremely self-assured man, a confidant of presidents.
Pullman first read a prepared statement. The entire matter, he said, could be reduced to dollars and cents. He reiterated in more detail Wickes’s assertion that the company was losing money on car building. Refrigerated cars were being constructed at $15 more than what customers were paying. The car-building business was competitive. If he gave them the wages they wanted, the company would win no contracts. The plant would have to close.
As for the rents in the model town, the committee members could surely see that his role as employer was entirely separate from his role as landlord. A landlord did not set rents based on the income of prospective tenants. He had not raised rents during the boom of business leading up to the fair. Why would he lower them now?
His white goatee bouncing, he talked numbers. He mentioned the 3.82 percent return on capital the company received in rents, less than the 6 percent he wanted. He pointed out that the company removed their garbage for nothing. Kept the streets clean. Mowed their yards. He had made no legal effort to collect overdue rents. Why? Because the town’s well-being was important to him. Because he thought of his employees as his “children.”
He praised himself for keeping the shops open, even as the operation lost money. He would allow them to examine the company’s contracts and books if they wanted. They could see for themselves the impossibility of his raising wages. They declined. The books were just paper, they could be made to show anything.
One man put their demand succinctly: “Mr. Pullman, we want more pay.”
Pullman stared at him. A veteran of a thousand business deals, he knew how to make his look go hard without perceptibly changing his features. He slowly enunciated his answer in the form of a question: “Is there a man here, who, knowing that we took in the two hundred cars we are now working on at a loss of twelve dollars a car, would say he wants more?”
The man who had spoken up licked his lips and made no reply.
Pullman said he had heard loose talk of a strike. He told them to consider well before deciding to quit his employ. The unstated implication hung in the silence while dust motes danced in the late afternoon sunlight.
Before the meeting ended, George Howard asked Pullman if he would confirm the promise made by Mr. Wickes that the company would not retaliate against any of the members of the committee. It was not a casual request, given Pullman’s staunch opposition to labor organizations, which had led to dismissals of union men in the past.
Pullman gave his word that there would be no reprisals.
At 6:00 p.m., the meeting ended. Pullman and Wickes congratulated themselves for defusing the situation. The newspapers reported relief throughout the city that the hard times were not likely to be made worse by the disruption of one of Chicago’s largest manufacturing plants. NO STRIKE JUST NOW, the Tribune reported the next day. PULLMAN IS SERENE.
* * *
Immediately after the meeting with Pullman, members of the grievance committee hurried to Kensington, the village across the Illinois Central tracks from the model town. ARU members crowded into Turner Hall to hear the company’s answer. George Howard told them that “the committee was received in the fairest spirits, on the part of Mr. Wickes.”
When a group of women entered, he called for three cheers. “I am glad they are being encouraged by their fellow-workmen in the Pullman shops,” he said. “We have not given the girls the credit they ought to have in the days gone by.”
Howard advised the employees to take no action at present. “You may have to be a little patient for a while.” They should do nothing rash. He was convinced that “six inches of foresight is worth a thousand miles of hindsight.”
He warned that in spite of its spectacular growth, the American Railway Union was still young. “You cannot expect us to do too much.” The employees should give the company time to prove its good faith by investigating the complaints of abuses in the shops.
Theodore Rhodie, a thirty-nine-year-old painter, stood up to say that if Howard and Debs advised it, they were willing to wait. “We cannot afford to strike, we do not want no strike.” But he also said his fellow painters were tired of their low pay and bad treatment. “We cannot be any worse off than we are. We are ready to stand up and be knocked down.”
Howard said the union was a democracy and the decision up to them. “My advice is to go back to the shops tomorrow.” They need not worry about retaliation. “I guarantee myself tonight, from the assertions I got from Mr. Wickes, that not one of the committee will be allowed to suffer for serving on this committee.”
At six thirty the next morning, Pullman employees did go back to work. But in the iron department, two men were told that there was no work for them. They should come back in a week. A third man worked for an hour and a half and then was also laid off. All three were members of the grievance committee.
Word of these dismissals shot through the plant. Having revealed themselves as sympathetic to the union, the men were likely to be blacklisted from all future employment. George Pullman had gone back on his word. He had taken revenge on the committee members. Anger began to percolate through every department.
The company later denied that the dismissals had had anything to do with the union negotiations. Neither Wickes nor Pullman knew about the moves. Perhaps a foreman had gotten word that the men had complained about him to the boss and was taking his personal revenge. Perhaps nothing more than a ripple in the flow of work had cost the men their jobs. Whatever the case, the dismissals pushed a volatile situation one step closer to a breaking point.
In the afternoon, Vice President Wickes came down to the factory. Along with other executives, he questioned some two dozen men about their complaints of mistreatment in the shops. Plant manager Middleton insulted and intimidated some of the witnesses, but Wickes vowed to get to the bottom of every issue.
That evening about 150 women employees met in the Arcade Building of the model town to hear Thomas Heathcoate speak. He was interrupted by word that a strike was being discussed at a union meeting in Kensington. He hurried off to take part.
The teenage Jennie Curtis took charge. A company spy reported that she made remarks “of the same impudent nature as has characterized her actions from the first.” She spoke of company officials as “Middleton” and “Wickes” and “the other fellows,” leaving off the deferential “Mister.” In her anger, she had found a voice—in the coming weeks, she would speak at rallies all over Chicago.
The grievance committee was meeting in a back room at the Dewdrop Tavern in Kensington. George Howard and ARU director Louis W. Rogers sat in for the union. No one was happy. The Pullman employees immediately began to talk about a strike.
Cigar smoke circled the astringent gaslights. Howard said he understood the frustration, the sense of having reached a limit. But the time was not right to bet on a strike, not when the Pullman Company held all the good cards.
He told the men that Eugene Debs had asked him to convey a message. They needed to remain patient, to consider carefully, to act prudently. Debs knew they were disappointed, but it was best to wait until after the shop complaints had been investigated.
The men were in no mood to submit. The layoffs were the last straw. As the night wore on, the employee representatives vented their anger. How much were they supposed to take? Where would it end? Eugene Debs advised patience, but Eugene Debs had also spoken of manhood. Was it manly to allow your wages to be slashed until you could not buy food for your family? Was it manly to be sworn at and cheated in the shops?
Strike. The word kept returning to every tongue. A strike resolution was submitted to a vote. Forty-two in favor, four opposed. More talk. They were determined to fight for higher pay and lower rents, yet they were afraid of joining the desperate masses of the unemployed. They had to take a stand, but they had to be careful. Their honor was at stake, their jobs were at stake.
Strike. Another vote. Support had to be overwhelming—a strike would not work if every department did not agree. More talk, more anger. The thick air was now giving way to the first gray light of a spring dawn. Manhood. Security. Dignity. Danger. Strike. The third vote was unanimous. Strike.
It was four thirty in the morning. George Howard again emphasized the democratic nature of the ARU. Each local within the plant must decide, he said. He told them they should go back to the plant and poll their members. It would not do to walk out unless they knew the men would overwhelmingly back their actions. Everyone had to be willing.
Agreed. The men set no date to walk off the job. They hurried home to wash up and get to the works before the shift started. The members of the locals would decide.
The men reported to work as usual on the morning of Friday, May 12. Everyone wanted to know what had gone on during the all-night meeting. Would there be a strike? The atmosphere was rife with rumors. It was whispered that the company had sent spies to the union gathering. It was said that the executives, knowing of the intended strike, had decided to preempt the action by closing the works at noon. A Western Union messenger had seen the orders. Was it true?
No one knew for sure, but distrust of company officials now colored every man’s mind. They should strike now, before the company had the chance to lock them out. At ten thirty, word began to circulate. Strike. Prearranged signals were given. Mechanics began to return their tools to their chests. Department by department, they ceased working. They turned their backs on their only source of sustenance. They walked out of the shops in a disciplined and orderly fashion. They congregated on Florence Avenue in front of the entrance to the plant.
Feelings ran high. For those who had labored from a young age, many hours a day, six days a week, year after year, with no vacations and few holidays, an unexpected break generated a strange and unfamiliar euphoria. The release from routine was exhilarating. Only when they set down their burden did they appreciate its great weight.
They were stunned to find themselves, for once, free men and women. Even more exciting was the heart-swelling sense of solidarity with each other. They felt themselves transformed from struggling, beaten-down individuals to a community standing together against their oppressors. Men and women who had worked together, lived together, endured humiliation and privation together, were now taking their fate into their own hands. Together.
As groups from different departments appeared, they were hailed by those already out. When Jennie Curtis and four hundred young women from the embroidery and laundry departments emerged, the plaza in front of the gate erupted in cheering. Before the clock on the tower struck noon, three thousand workers had left their jobs. The Pullman works, one of the largest factories in the country, fell silent.
Soon a notice appeared on the gates: “The works are closed until further notice.”
The strike was on.
* * *
George Pullman refused to speak to reporters, but Thomas Wickes expressed baffled surprise. The company had not fired any of the committeemen in retribution, nor had there been a plan to close the works. It was all a misunderstanding.
George Howard, in his initial enthusiasm, told reporters that ARU members might boycott Pullman cars, spreading the job action to most of the nation’s railroads. It was rumored falsely that workmen on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, known as the Big Four, had already cut Pullman cars from the trains. Illinois Central trainmen, it was said, were also refusing to handle the company’s sleepers.
That Friday afternoon, the workers, astonished by the action they had taken, elated by the sudden sensation of freedom, went home and donned their best clothes. They congregated at the baseball field on the edge of Lake Calumet. They talked in small groups. Some lay on the grass, their faces bathed in sunshine.
That night, they packed a meeting at Turner Hall to overflowing. When he rose to address them, George Howard had regained his cautious tone. He advised the strikers not to threaten, intimidate, or use force of any kind. The men should ignore any provocations from the company. They should let liquor alone. Of George Pullman he said, “It is so long since he has done any work that he has forgotten what ill-usage means.” If Pullman had come down and listened to the men, he asserted, the strike might have been avoided.
Thomas Heathcoate, now head of the strike committee, told the crowd that he had once respected his employer, but now he did not trust the man. He scoffed at the idea of examining the company’s books. Numbers could be altered. A hungry child was not a number. He was trying to feed his family on eight cents a meal. How would George Pullman get along on such fare? The men laughed.
Theodore Rhodie stood to say he could not believe that the company took any contracts at a loss. George Pullman had given a hundred thousand dollars to the museum in Jackson Park. The money “came out of us and Pullman got the credit.” The men jeered.
When Pullman finally did face reporters, he said the action was a “most unpleasant surprise for me.” His workers were the best paid in the world. “We have made no preparations for riots,” he said, “for we do not anticipate there will be any.”
That evening, Pullman abandoned Chicago. He boarded his private car and journeyed overnight to Long Branch, New Jersey. He found his oceanfront estate besieged by reporters. He took another train to the Saint Lawrence River. Anxious and worn out, he at last found quiet at Castle Rest.
Thomas Heathcoate was resigned. “The boys were bound to go out anyway,” he said. He summed up the workers’ stoic feelings: “We do not expect the company to concede our demands. We do not know what the outcome will be, and in fact we do not care much.”
The employees realized that they were working for less wages than they needed simply to feed their families. “And on that proposition,” Heathcoate said, “we absolutely refuse to work any longer.”