The Pullman Strike of 1894 began on this day in history
The Pullman Strike of 1894 began on this day in history. George Pullman was a rail tycoon in 19th century Chicago, owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company His workers mostly lived in a Company-owned neighbourhood called Pullman, on the South Side of Chicago. So George Pullman wasn’t just the railroad workers’ boss – he was their landlord, too When a depression hit in 1893, Pullman simultaneously docked his workers’ wages while keeping their rents at the same level and charging extortionate utility rates. As this cartoon shows, Pullman was making life impossible for his own employees This was the last straw: it was time to strike. The Pullman strikers appealed to support from the American Railway Union, founded by Eugene Debs the year before. And the Union got behind them: when Pullman rail-workers walked out, the ARU called for a nationwide boycott of Pullman train cars. The strike was huge: 125,000 workers joined the boycott in a few days, and all traffic on the 24 railro...