The Middle
The Growth of The Pullman Company
With his own fortune and that of his investors, Pullman greatly expanded the company. He created his first hotel on wheels, the President, a sleeper with an attached kitchen and dining car. The food rivaled the best restaurants of the day and the service was impeccable. A year later in 1868, he launched the Delmonico, the world's first sleeping car devoted to fine cuisine. Both the President and the Delmonico and subsequent Pullman sleeping cars offered first-rate service which was provided by recently-freed former house slaves who served as porters, waiters, chambermaids, entertainers, and valets all rolled into one person.
In January, Benjamin Field dissolved the partnership and the company became known as thePullman Palace Car Company. The company charter was approved by the Illinois Legislature on February 22, 1867. The board of directors of the company elected Pullman as president and general manager. Pullman mostly handled marketing sleeping car services, while his brother Albert managed the manufacturing end of the operation. Lawyer Charles Angell, who later embezzled thousands of dollars from the company, handled the company's financial and legal affairs.The popularity of Pullman's sleeping car service outstipped his production facilities. In 1880, Pullman bought 4,000 acres near Lake Calumet some 14 miles south of Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad for $800,000. He hired Solon Spencer Beman to design his new plant there, and in an effort to solve the issue of labor unrest and poverty, he also built a town adjacent to his factory with its own housing, shopping areas, churches, theaters, parks, hotel and library for his employees.By 1883, Pullman had shops in St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Elmira, New York; and Wilmington, Delaware as well as several factories in Europe and England. The company manufactured sleeping cars, boxcars, coal cars, baggage cars, chair cars, refrigerated cars, streetcars, and mail cars. In 1885, wages started at $1.30 per day. By 1897, unskilled workers earned $1.86, and journeymen mechanics earned $2.28 per day. The original working day was between 10 and 11 hours. Originally the Pullman Company paid workers disabled on the job half their salary. Mr. Sessions put an end to that suggesting that it encouraged malingering.
In January, Benjamin Field dissolved the partnership and the company became known as thePullman Palace Car Company. The company charter was approved by the Illinois Legislature on February 22, 1867. The board of directors of the company elected Pullman as president and general manager. Pullman mostly handled marketing sleeping car services, while his brother Albert managed the manufacturing end of the operation. Lawyer Charles Angell, who later embezzled thousands of dollars from the company, handled the company's financial and legal affairs.The popularity of Pullman's sleeping car service outstipped his production facilities. In 1880, Pullman bought 4,000 acres near Lake Calumet some 14 miles south of Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad for $800,000. He hired Solon Spencer Beman to design his new plant there, and in an effort to solve the issue of labor unrest and poverty, he also built a town adjacent to his factory with its own housing, shopping areas, churches, theaters, parks, hotel and library for his employees.By 1883, Pullman had shops in St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Elmira, New York; and Wilmington, Delaware as well as several factories in Europe and England. The company manufactured sleeping cars, boxcars, coal cars, baggage cars, chair cars, refrigerated cars, streetcars, and mail cars. In 1885, wages started at $1.30 per day. By 1897, unskilled workers earned $1.86, and journeymen mechanics earned $2.28 per day. The original working day was between 10 and 11 hours. Originally the Pullman Company paid workers disabled on the job half their salary. Mr. Sessions put an end to that suggesting that it encouraged malingering.
Pullman's Death
After the death of George M. Pullman in 1897 Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926) assumed the presidency of the Pullman Palace Car Co. Lincoln remained president of the company until 1911. When Pullman died he left behind an estate of $7.6 million, 2490 railroad cars and a $63.5 million corporation. At this time the company had 90% of the sleeping car business in North America, and it had the largest railroad car plant in the world. In 1898, during this transition period the sewage farm was sold; it never being a successful operation for the efficient treatment of sewage. The brickyards located south of the community at 116th Street was sold and became the Illinois Brick Co.During the period after Pullman's death the company was rapidly restructured. The name was changed to the Pullman Company in 1899. In 1900 the company was to buy out its major competitor, the Wagner Palace Car Co. of Buffalo. This same year on September 1st the Calumet Shops were opened as a repair facility on what was the site of streetcar and interurban-car manufacturing. The Buffalo shop was then converted to a repair facility. These two shops were the last to be closed at the end of the Pullman era. Other major repair shops were located at Atlanta, Richmond, California, Wilmington, Delaware and St. Louis.
Pullman Abroad And Advertising
While Pullman attempted to establish his company in Europe he ultimately could not compete with George Nagelmackers, a Belgian, who formed a sleeping car service, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, that was headquartered in Paris. Pullman sold Nagelmackers his interests and operations in Europe in 1888. A company division was formed in England after the Pullman shop in Detroit furnished an English railroad with several cars. The Pullman name lives today in Europe, a symbol of elegance and luxury in a hotel chain in several countries and in North Africa. It is not unusual today to see "Pullman" tourist buses on European highways. Of course, these operations never had any connection with the original Pullman Company. George M. Pullman was a master at advertising and marketing his services and train accommodations. Beginning with his earliest efforts at creating sleeping cars during the 1860s, he realized the marketing potential of "leasing" rather than selling his cars. By leasing them rather than selling them he was assured of their use by the greatest number of train lines, rather than just a few who could afford his more costly, elegant cars. As train lines expanded their services and ridership grew, so could the number of cars they leased from Pullman.Once Pullman's Palace Car Company was created and headquartered at Pullman, Illinois in 1881, marketing began in earnest with Pullman Palace Car Company descriptive circulars (1886) describing hotel, sleeping, excursion and hunting cars, the railroad companies leasing his cars advertised their advantages, and passes were issued allowing guests to travel during specified times. Publicity about the Town of Pullman and its famous train cars appeared in newspapers and journals across the country and overseas and for the Columbian Exposition of 1893, George Pullman created special "Market Square" apartment accommodations in the Town of Pullman for guests to stay and ran trains from the Exposition directly to Pullman. By the time of his death, Pullman had succeeded in making his name a household word. After George Pullman's death in 1897, the Pullman Company continued an aggressive advertising and marketing campaign throughout its lifetime. Hundreds of brochures, booklets, posters, and pamphlets were created over the decades that followed. Perhaps the most famous and well-known are the ads that appeared in magazines such as National Geographic, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and Time, from the 1930s through the second War World and into the 1950s. Ads often had a theme and there were several series of ads such as the celebrity "I always travel by Pullman" series and and extensive series of wartime ads featuring American G.I.S.