Pullman George Mortimer – 1831–1897

Pullman’s “Pioneer” sleeping car appeared in 1865 and transformed long-distance rail travel, creating great profit for the railroads and making Pullman a vast fortune. He became a major industrialist, who attempted to control every aspect of his employees’ lives, building the quasi-utopian town of Pullman (now a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side), in which his employees were obliged to live. Pullman’s extreme paternalism became a subject of great controversy and conflict between the forces of capital and labor.