"The object in building Pullman was the establishment of a great manufacturing business on the most substantial basis possible, recognizing as we did, and do now, that the working people are the most important element which enters into the successful operation of any manufacturing enterprise." --George M. Pullman, The Strike at Pullman

This Week:

We will examine the town of Pullman, which has been described as an "industrial suburb," from its founding in 1880 to just following the famous strike of 1894. In its early years Pullman seemed to many to provide a solution to three related questions raised in the late-nineteenth industrial city: what was the most efficient way to manage large-scale manufacturing? how could the potentially destructive opposition of capital and labor be avoided? and, how could life and work in the industrial city best be organized? In these respects it appeared to offer an alternative to and a model for Chicago. Needless to say, the famous Pullman Strike of 1894 called its value into question.

Readings:

• Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief. Chapter 9, "Taming the Urban Beast," pp. 177-208; and Chapter 11, "Making Sense of the Age," pp. 232-270.
• In course packet:
  The Story of Pullman (Chicago: Blakely and Rogers, 1893).
  Carroll D. Wright, The Story of Pullman [from the Sixteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor] (Boston: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1885).
  Richard T. Ely, "Pullman: A Social Study," Harper's New Monthly Magazine (April 1885), pp. 452-466.
  "Statement of George M. Pullman," in The Strike at Pullman. Chicago, 1895, pp. 1-4.
  Jane Addams, "A Modern Lear," in Graham Taylor, ed., Satellite Cities: A Study of Industrial Suburbs (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1915), pp. 68-90.
• Electronic Resources: Week 2 Notebook
  
  The chapters from Smith give a short history of Pullman and what it seemed to represent to its builders, boosters, and critics, as well as an overview of the strike in the larger context of the time, which includes the World's Columbian Exposition. Read them for background. Class discussion will focus on a careful analysis of the built environment that was the town itself and the readings from the packet. The Story of Pullman was written by an employee of the company at the time of the Columbian Exposition. George Pullman and his corporation were important sponsors of the fair, and there was a major Pullman exhibition in Louis Sullivan's Transportation Building. Several thousand fair visitors made the side trip to see the town of Pullman, about ten miles further south from downtown Chicago. This history was published in several forms. The one you read was taken from the 1893 company annual report, a copy of which is in Special Collections. That copy is handsomely illustrated and includes a fold-out illustration of the railroad cars the company exhibited at the fair. Take a look at it if you can. Carroll Wright was Chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor at the time he authored his report on the town. He was soon to become the first United States Commissioner of Labor. He was a reform-minded statistician who published several books on social issues and who, in 1890, directed the eleventh federal census. Ironically, he later headed the federal commission that investigated the Pullman Strike. Richard T. Ely was a young University of Wisconsin economist at the time he wrote his article for Harper's. He soon developed a reputation as one of the most insightful observers of American social and economic life in the late nineteenth century. Ely visited Pullman virtually simultaneously with Wright and the state labor commissioners. At the time he published this article, the model town had received virtually nothing but praise in the popular press. Founder George M. Pullman's brief statement was issued during the strike. "A Modern Lear" was an attempt by the noted Chicago reformer Jane Addams (we'll be dealing much more with her next week) to analyze what had happened in Chicago in terms of the dynamics of modern urban community. She was unable to place this article, presumably because it was too controversial, until several years after the strike, though she did present it before then as a lecture.

Questions to consider:

• What issues about the modern industrial city most concern the different commentators on Pullman, and how do they see Pullman as speaking to those issues?
• What ideas about modern urban life are implicit in the physical design of Pullman?
• Given that the strike showed the model town to be a failure in important respects, might it still be considered a significant achievement in reconceptualizing the urban built environment and the assumptions on which it was based?

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Last Updated: 01/06/99