Pullman Strike
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The Pullman Strike occurred when 50,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers went on a wildcat strike in Illinois on May 11, 1894.
The owner of the company, George Pullman was a "welfare capitalist." He hoped to prevent labor discontent, but was not willing to increase the workers' wages. Pullman housed his workers in a company town by Lake Calumet (Pullman, Chicago) in what is now the southern part of the city. Instead of living in utilitarian tenements as did many other industrial workers of the day, Pullman workers lived in attractive company-owned houses, complete with indoor plumbing, gas, and sewer systems.
The luxuries of this supposed utopia came at a cost: in this "company town," everything was owned by the corporation, including both the houses and local stores. The Pullman Company controlled almost every aspect of their lives, and practiced "debt slavery" (one form of truck system), which kept workers under de facto contract by maintaining large debts to the company store and to their "landlord," the Pullman Company itself. Money owed was automatically deducted from workers' paychecks and workers would often never see their earnings at all.
During the major economic downturn of the early 1890s, George Pullman cut wages without an equivalent decrease in rent and other expenses. Discontented workers joined the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott of all Pullman cars.
The strike effectively shut down production in the Pullman factories and led to a lockout. Many supply routes were cut off for everyone when railroad workers across the nation striking in sympathy strike blocked Pullman cars (and subsequently Wagner Palace cars) from moving.
On July 5th, the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition around the Court of Honor were torched. Buildings caught in the blaze included the administration’s hall, the manufacturer's hall, the electricity hall, the machinery hall, the mining hall, the agricultural hall, and the fair's train station.
The strike was broken up by United States Marshals and some 2,000 United States Army troops, commanded by Nelson Miles, sent in by President Grover Cleveland on the basis that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail. During the course of the strike, 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. An estimated $80,000 worth of property was damaged, and Debs was tried for, and found guilty of, interfering with the mail. He was sent to prison for six months.
At the time of his arrest, Debs was not a Socialist. However, during his time in prison, he read the works of Karl Marx. After his release in 1895, he became the leading Socialist figure in America. He ran for President for the first of five times in 1900.
See also
- History of the United States (1865-1918)
- Eugene V. Debs
- American Railway Union
- John Peter Altgeld
- Sherman Anti-Trust Act
- Grover Cleveland
- Norris-LaGuardia Act
- Blacklist
- Detroit, Michigan
- Abraham Lincoln
External links
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