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Owner George Pullman was a " welfare capitalist " who hoped to prevent labor discontent, but was not willing to grant high wages. Pullman housed his workers in a company town by Lake Calumet in what is today Chicago's far South Side. Instead of living in utilitarian tenements like other industrial workers of the day, Pullman workers lived in attractive company-owned houses, with indoor plumbing, gas, and sewers.
However the luxuries of this supposed utopia came at a cost- workers for Pullman lived in a "company town" where everything was owned by the corporation, including their housing and local store. The Pullman Company controlled every aspect of their lives, and practiced " debt slavery" (one form of truck system), which kept workers under de facto contract by maintenance of large debts to the company store and to their "landlord," the Pullman Company itself. Money owed was automatically deducted from workers' paychecks and frequently workers would never see their earnings at all.
During the major economic downturn of the early 1890s, George Pullman cut wages without an equivalent decrease in rent and other expenses. Discontented workers joined the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene Debs, and decided to stage a strike.
The strike effectively shut down production in the Pullman factories and led to a lockout. Many supply routes were cut off when railroad workers blocked Pullman cars (and subsequently Wagner Palace cars) from moving in the ensuing nationwide sympathy strike.
On 5 July, the buildings of the World Columbian ExpositionThe World Columbian Exposition (also called World's Columbian Exposition), a World's fair, was held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World. Chicago had beaten New York City, Washington, D around the Court of Honor were torched. Buildings caught in the blaze included the administration’s hall, the manufacturer's hall, the electricity hall, the machinery hall, the mining hall, the agricultural hall, and the fair's train station.
The strike was eventually broken up by over 12,000 federal troops sent in by President Grover ClevelandGrover Cleveland Order 22nd President 24th President Term of Office March 4, 1885 March 4, 1889 March 4, 1893 March 4, 1897 Followed Chester A. Arthur ( 1885) Benjamin Harrison ( 1893) Succeeded by Benjamin Harrison ( 1889) William McKinley ( 1897) Date o with the excuse that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. MailUnited States Postal Service (USPS) is the United States government organization responsible for providing postal service in the United States and is generally referred to as "the post office. It was created to fulfill the mandate in the United States Con. By the end of the strike 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. An estimated $80 million worth of property was damaged, and Eugene Debs was found guilty of interfering with the mail and sent to prison.
At the time of his arrest, Debs was not a Socialist. However, when he was jailed for obstructing the mail, he read the works of Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx ( May 5, 1818 March 14, 1883) was an influential German economist, philosopher, social and political theorist. Although Marx addressed many issues in his career as a journalist and philosopher, he is most famous for his analysis of hist and after his release in 1895 became the leading Socialist figure in America, running for President for the first of 5 times in 1900.