A quiz question · medium
What was unusual about the town of Pullman, Illinois, in the 1880s and 1890s?
George Pullman built the town south of Chicago between 1880 and 1884 as an industrial paternalist project. The Pullman company owned every house, store, church, library, and theatre. Workers rented from the company and shopped at the company. When wages were cut in 1894 but rents were not, the resulting strike spread to a national railroad shutdown and was broken by federal troops sent by President Cleveland.
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The Town Where the Boss Owned the Houses George Pullman built a model factory town south of Chicago in 1880. He ran it like a benevolent autocracy until 1894, when his workers stopped accepting the rent.