George Pullman

George Mortimer Pullman (1831 to 1897) was an American engineer and industrialist who designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car. Born in Brocton, New York, he took over his late father's business of moving buildings at the age of 22 and in 1859 moved to Chicago, where he and a partner raised whole buildings above the new street level. He built his first sleeping car in 1864, marketed it as luxury for the middle class, and founded a company town in Chicago for the workers who made the cars. His Pullman Company also hired black men as porters, who were paid mainly in tips. After he halved wages in the 1894 downturn without lowering rents in the company town, the Pullman Strike followed, and the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the company in 1898 to divest the town. He died in 1897.