|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] George Pullman Biography PULLMAN, George Mortimer (1831–97). An American inventor, born in Chautauqua Co., N. Y. He worked for a time as a cabinetmaker with an elder brother in Albion, N. Y., and in 1853 took a contract for moving buildings that obstructed the widening of the Erie Canal. In 1859 he removed to Chicago, where he did business as a building contractor. In the same year he remodeled two old coaches into sleeping cars, and in 1863 he built the first new sleeping car, "Pioneer," upon the lines of the cars now in use throughout the United States. Of the Pullman Palace Car Company, which he organized in 1867, he was president until his death. He founded (1880) for his employees the model town of Pullman, Ill., and attempted to make the place an ideal home for his men. However, the company insisted on exercising sole control, and at last the residents, dissatisfied with the high rates charged for rent, water, and gas, voted (1889) in favor of annexation to Chicago. The Pullman employees were the ones who precipitated the great American railroad strike of 1894 by their stand for higher wages and shorter hours. In 1887 he invented and put into execution the idea of vestibule trains, and introduced also the dining car on the Union Pacific Railroad. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 362. |