George Pullman built a model town, then refused to lower rent when he cut his workers' wages.
In 1880, George Pullman purchased 4,000 acres of open prairie south of Chicago and began constructing a town from scratch.1 The town bore his name, as did the company that built it, the Pullman Palace Car Company. He hired architect Solon S. Beman and landscape designer Nathan F. Barrett to create a planned community with paved streets, running water, a library, a church, parks, and row houses of brick, all built around the factory that produced his luxury railroad cars.
Pullman's stated objective was to attract superior workers by providing living conditions better than anything available in nearby Chicago, where stockyard workers lived in slums.2 At a hygienic exposition in Prague, the town was awarded the title of "the world's most perfect town."
The perfection came with conditions. Pullman owned every building, every store, and the single church. Independent newspapers were prohibited. Inspectors entered homes without notice. Alcohol was banned for workers, though it was served to visiting railroad executives at the Hotel Florence.3 The rent Pullman charged guaranteed him a six percent return on the company's investment in building the town.4 Even the height of a worker's ceiling reflected his rank: twelve feet for executives, ten for foremen, eight for unskilled laborers.
During the Panic of 1893, Pullman cut wages but refused to lower rents. Workers formed a grievance committee. Pullman would not negotiate. In May 1894, three thousand workers walked out, and members of the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, launched a sympathy boycott that shut down rail traffic across the western United States.5 The federal government deployed troops. The strike was broken. Debs was arrested.
Pullman died in 1897, and the following year the Illinois Supreme Court ordered the company to sell all property not used for industrial purposes, ruling that operating a town lay outside the company's charter.6 The houses were sold to their occupants. In 2015, the site was designated a National Historical Park.