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dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2Jqz780
Oh I just saw this cartoon in-context. They’ve cropped it, but to the left, the man turning the handle of the vise was labeled “Pullman” and it’s a reference to the Pullman Strike of 1894.
In short, what this cartoon is depicting is that Pullman made luxury train cars, and his really revolutionary idea was that he built his factory, and built a town around it to house the workers. He owned the buildings, he controlled the rent. He made shopping places and chose what stores he would rent space to, to sell the workers and their families things they needed and wanted. He made libraries, and stocked them with books himself. There were meeting spaces, and he organized the community groups to meet there. It was a model town, but he controlled it entirely. People lived there, and it was better than other places available to many workers at the time, but it was entirely Pullman’s, and if you opted not to rent from him he often opted not to employ you. Even management, if you didn’t live in the town you were less likely to get promotions.
And then there was an economic downturn, and orders for luxury rail cars went down. So the factory cut wages and hours.
But Pullman didn’t cut rent. He could have saved the situation by just not making a profit on the rents in his town, knowing that the workers living there were now not being paid enough (by him!) to afford them, but he didn’t want to give up the profits, so he kept rents at their original rate, meaning workers were facing starvation.
The federal government broke the strike, in the end, to save you the click, up there. They always have. We got Labor Day, which was not what anyone wanted– one day off a year? does not save us from a brutal system like this.
But in the end, the state of Illinois sued him and made him sell off his rental properties in Pullman. Which is an interesting place to visit, which is what I did last weekend, and I recognized this cartoon and felt much wiser about the whole thing. It’s a neighborhood in Chicago now, and it’s gentrifying after some neglect, and if you’re into that, buy now while rents are still low and there’s still some character.
(Your picture was not posted)
Oh I just saw this cartoon in-context. They’ve cropped it, but to the left, the man turning the handle of the vise was labeled “Pullman” and it’s a reference to the Pullman Strike of 1894.
In short, what this cartoon is depicting is that Pullman made luxury train cars, and his really revolutionary idea was that he built his factory, and built a town around it to house the workers. He owned the buildings, he controlled the rent. He made shopping places and chose what stores he would rent space to, to sell the workers and their families things they needed and wanted. He made libraries, and stocked them with books himself. There were meeting spaces, and he organized the community groups to meet there. It was a model town, but he controlled it entirely. People lived there, and it was better than other places available to many workers at the time, but it was entirely Pullman’s, and if you opted not to rent from him he often opted not to employ you. Even management, if you didn’t live in the town you were less likely to get promotions.
And then there was an economic downturn, and orders for luxury rail cars went down. So the factory cut wages and hours.
But Pullman didn’t cut rent. He could have saved the situation by just not making a profit on the rents in his town, knowing that the workers living there were now not being paid enough (by him!) to afford them, but he didn’t want to give up the profits, so he kept rents at their original rate, meaning workers were facing starvation.
The federal government broke the strike, in the end, to save you the click, up there. They always have. We got Labor Day, which was not what anyone wanted– one day off a year? does not save us from a brutal system like this.
But in the end, the state of Illinois sued him and made him sell off his rental properties in Pullman. Which is an interesting place to visit, which is what I did last weekend, and I recognized this cartoon and felt much wiser about the whole thing. It’s a neighborhood in Chicago now, and it’s gentrifying after some neglect, and if you’re into that, buy now while rents are still low and there’s still some character.
(Your picture was not posted)
