Pullman: A Life in Motion

(Hardback)

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Today, the word "pullman" has come to mean "a railroad passenger car with especially comfortable furnishings for day or especially for night travel". But before the word entered the mainstream, it was a name, that of George Mortimer Pullman, a serial entrepreneur, an extraordinary innovator and one of the cleverest businessmen of America's Gilded Age. Pullman gave his name first to a coach, then to a train and finally to a notion, that of luxury travel. This book will retrace the history of Pullman, from the genius innovation of overnight travel, dining wagons and sleeper beds, to a globally recognized brand synonymous with pioneer engineering, premium mobility and lavish "hotels on wheels". Pullman's history is closely tied with the history of 20th century USA, yet it extended its influence across the world. George Mortimer Pullman (1831-1897) was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car, a luxurious railroad coach designed for overnight travel, and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. In 1894 workers at his Pullman's Palace Car Company initiated the Pullman Strike, which severely disrupted rail travel in the midwestern United States and established the use of the injunction as a means of strikebreaking. In 1898, the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town, which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago.