WEBVTT - Let's Talk About The Pullman Strike, Knob-Gobblers 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:06.880 Hi, everybody, Um, is there something I should look at her? 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.320 Are you just gonna You're gonna tell me things? Right? Geez? 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:14.280 We already watched this introduction coal between you and me, Sharine? 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:20.000 We really, we really that was unfortunately Robert's, host of 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:26.200 Behind the Bastard's podcasting a weird voice. I'm someone else, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.600 don't I don't know. I'm talking to Sharine? Is who 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:36.760 I am? And I'm Sharine? I am Sharene. I'm I'm 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.360 well to be honest, but I feel guilty saying that, um, 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.199 because relatively I'm usually bad. But I think it's I'm 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.040 a better bad than usual. You know that makes sense? 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:48.680 I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's always good 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:50.840 to be a better bad than usual. And it's really 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.120 gloomy in l A, and that makes me thrive. I 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.520 love Yeah, I love it when LA feels like the 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.480 Pacific Northwest. Briefly, Yes, exactly. It doesn't happen it often, 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.240 you get me. Yeah, So, Sharine, how do you feel 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:17.560 about trains? Uh? So they're fun. That's a way to introduce. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:23.120 I love to travel. Okay, how do you feel about so? 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.360 You like? You like comfortable trains? Right? Like? You know 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.400 trains with cabin sleeper cars, all that sort of stuff. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.880 The trains you can sit on and enjoy. I like 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:35.880 all trains. I think they're very impressive. And uh yeah, 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.440 if you do you really think about it, there a 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.240 feat that man made, you know what I mean? They 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.000 pretty cool. Now, how do you feel about workers being 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.520 gunned down because they are trying to get paid fairly 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.160 for helping to make trains bad? I feel bad about 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.360 you feel bad about that? Oh okay, so this might 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.120 not be a super happy episode. Well that's the episode. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.120 Like that. It's it's great, it's great. I'm very good 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.520 at my job. The working title I have for this 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.720 this episode sharene is. Let's talk about the Pullman strike 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.640 Comma Cocksuckers And I don't know why I was so 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.000 aggressive when I was writing the title to this um 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.959 but but I never edited it and now it's it's 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:19.400 in there, So if you can we make this the 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.920 title of the episode. We put Cocksuckers in Spotify. I 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.160 don't know. There's certain apps that reject these really yeah, 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.639 or and it makes and it makes it like like 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.200 it blocks it for searching things. But in my heart, 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.960 that's the title. Yeah, I feel like, if Cometown is fine, oh, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.560 let's talk about the Pullman Strike. Cocksuckers is also okay. 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:41.359 I mean, I'm willing to give it a shot if 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.280 it would make you happy. Yeah, I think I would 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.720 like to give it a shot. On the episode that 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.320 I guessed on it might it might be gone forever, Well, 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.960 it might be Yeah, Well we'll change the title up 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.480 on a couple of an artifact, we can change the 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.320 title to let's talk about the Pullman Strike knob gobblers. Okay, 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:05.200 they're not gonna catch that's great, that's great. So today, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:10.359 Serene Lonnie unis, today we're gonna learn about George Pullman, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.959 a guy who sucked so bad that workers who didn't 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.640 even work for him quit working to protest how shitty 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.760 a boss he was. Like, that's the level of bad. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.240 Like other people who had nothing to do with this 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.440 guy quit working to protest how much he sucked. Now, 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.280 like most great labor stories, the story of the Pullman 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.560 Strike has a sad ending and a lot more racism 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.839 than you'd hope. But that's no excuse not to talk 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:36.360 about this huge piece of ship, George Mortimer Pullman. He 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.160 was born in eighteen thirty one and Brockton, New York. 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.320 His dad, James Lewis known as Louis, was a farmer 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.840 who became a carpenter because the money was much better. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.840 The family seems to have been upwardly mobile for the time, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.520 but firmly working class. George was expected to labor from 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.760 a young age. Now Brockton had a general store owned 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.320 by his mom's uncle, and after he finished fourth grade, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.840 it was to did that he would drop out and 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.480 work there for about forty dollars a month, which is 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.480 a pretty good salary for the time. Again, his family 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.400 is comfortable. That same year, his parents left him and 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.120 his two brothers behind to move to Albion, New Jersey, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.040 so his dad could work on widening the eerie canal. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.520 Uh And yeah, yeah, this was this was like a 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.760 whole big deal here in George's fourteen when the effort starts. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.480 We have fewer of his early recollections that night, I 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.160 prefer so it's hard to say how this affected him, 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.920 but the move was great for his father's career. Louis 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.600 Pullman developed a method of moving the building off of 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.720 its old foundations and onto a new one because they 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.279 had to to widen This canal. There was like stuff 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.760 built up against the canal that they had to lift 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.760 up and move so that they could widen the canal. 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:47.960 It was like this whole they're doing this and like 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.240 the eighteen late eighteen forties, I think is kind of 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.640 when the effort gets really underway. Um. See, he can 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.120 be impressive sometimes it's really cool because like again people 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.600 are they don't have techno apology, then like everything sucks. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.600 Uh to innovative, they have to be innovative. Yeah, So 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.680 the system that Louis Pullman develops to move buildings uses 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.320 like Screwjack's and this special machine that he's invented in 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.800 it's this whole wild deal. Um. And so since a 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.120 lot of buildings needed to be moved to expand the 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.960 Erie Canal, this was a major boon for family finances. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.039 In eighteen forty eight, three years after three years of 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.960 working at his family store, George was seventeen and he 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.200 was missing his parents who were still off building the 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.360 Erie Canal. So he joins moves to Albion, New York, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.279 joins his family, and he gets a job at what 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.200 is now the family business, moving buildings so that a 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.560 canal can be wider. The next five years were peacefully 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.200 lucrative for both him and his family, before his father 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.839 died in eighteen fifty three, leaving George Pullman the heir 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.920 to the business at age twenty two. He had brothers, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.280 but they started another business, and George had been working 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.159 with his dad, so he was the obvious choice. His 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.320 first big contract is from the state of New York. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.480 They wanted twenty buildings, most most of which were warehouses, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.160 moved out of the way of the widening canal. UH. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:07.800 This made a decent amount of money, but it was 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.400 not the kind of thing that could last forever. In 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.160 New York only had so many additional buildings that were 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.240 in the way of where the canal was getting expanded to, 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.360 and eventually there was going to be no more money 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.159 in that UH. The economy hit a major recession in 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.960 the mid eighteen fifties and George was forced to look 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.240 outside of New York for revenue. He founded in Chicago, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.000 a city that by eighteen fifty seven was starting to 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.720 reap the consequences of trying to make too much Chicago, 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.400 way too fast. There was a period of time in 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.320 which we had a Chicago and everybody was so excited 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.480 about it. They were like, we gotta keep making more Chicago. 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.920 And then they built way too much Chicago and like 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.120 they couldn't. They couldn't, Like so Chicago is built on 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.080 a swamp like a lot of places, um and it was, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.480 uh like they didn't they didn't build like they did. 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.000 They had no real infrastructure, um like, because this thing 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.320 just like blew up so quickly. Um back at the 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.840 time and like the mid eighteen hundreds, it's kind of 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.160 a cluster of buildings about four ft above Lake Michigan. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.840 Um that nobody really planned out all that well. So 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.920 as it gets bigger, it's flooding constantly, suage just like 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.680 washing into houses and streets all the time. Um Like. 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.320 It was just there never should have been large numbers 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.520 of people there. It was kind of like a fucking swamp. 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.040 And they just they made too much Chicago too fast. 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.080 You know. It's a classic story. Were they making Chicago 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.080 because they were like really excited about it, or because 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:32.720 they had to and the people it was like the 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.080 population thing, I think, yeah, right, I think there's a 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.040 couple of different things, but yeah, it was just it 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:39.560 was the place to be for a while. You know. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.200 The westward expansion is like really in full swing at 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.400 this period of time. Chicago's uh, you know, kind of 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.640 in the mid middle of the country. Um, and it 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:50.960 yeah that they just coming to a city. I guess 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.280 it's becoming a central city. Yeah, and it's a problem. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.240 And to kind of illustrate what a problem it was, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.880 I want to quote from a passage from the hilarious 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:05.120 named website Enjoy Illinois. Quote. The streets turned to mud, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.520 stranding horses, carriages, and humans alike. Pools of standing water 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.320 formed all over the city. The environment caused hygiene and 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.360 health problems, including an eighteen fifty four collar outbreak which 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.720 killed one in twenty residents. The marsh on which the 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.520 city was built was trying to claim back its territory. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.680 After a number of failed attempts to fix the problem, 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.560 including planking the streets with wood, the city decided that 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.320 only that the only long term solution was to install 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.520 a sewer and stormwater system. But in Chicago that was 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.440 no easy feat. Sewers need to go underground and they 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.360 drained down. Chicago was barely above the water table, and 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.520 underground sewers couldn't work at that level. So they got 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.120 this issue. They they've suddenly built a lot of Chicago ships, 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.760 literal ships flooding everywhere, and they need to build sewers, 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.439 but Chicago is barely above the water. You know, it 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.120 just sounds like nature spicing back. We were never meant 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.319 to be there. We were never meant to have a Chicago. 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.600 You know, I think that's fair, you know, like it's 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.880 just doesn't want us there. Nature's fighting back, and it was. Yeah, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.280 there's there's a category of cities in the United States, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.439 and not just in the United States, but specifically in 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.600 the United States. There's a category of cities that like 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.880 our direct affronts to God. Phoenix is another direct affront 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.440 to God, Like if we we built Phoenix, Arizona to 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.079 spit in the eye of the Almighty, it never people 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.079 were never supposed to live there in any kind of 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.080 quantity um. And it's the same thing with Chicago. I see, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.080 That's how I feel back Chicago Phoenix. Yeah, I don't 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.960 know how they're all of Florida. I don't know what 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.920 the fun is thinking with that ship, Like, uh, Dan, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.920 so Chicago's you know, they're trying to figure out how 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.520 to get a sewer built in a city that is 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:54.480 like almost uniquely unsuited to having traditional sewers, and rather 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.240 than admit that the present location of Chicago wasn't affront 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.640 to God, they opted to raise every single go building 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.800 in street in town by an average height of six ft. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:09.400 They decided, we can't ships flooding everywhere, we can't build 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.040 a normal underground sewer here, so instead of moving, let's 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.120 lift the entire city up by six ft. That is 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:22.800 so bonkers. It's amazing. What I uh, the last thing 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:24.840 I ever thought you would say. I thought they were 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:26.960 going to just build them above ground and then make 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.840 Chicago worse. But that'sn't. That'sn't. That's intense to just lived 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.120 a city. We really do think we're God. It's it's amazing. 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.240 I weirdly enough like that. One of the things that 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.559 reminds me of as a story from the Roman Empire 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.280 of one of Caesar's conquests. He was laying siege to 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.400 this Galic city called Alesia, and the way the Romans 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.439 would siege the city is they would build a wall 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.840 around the entire city so they could basically like shoot 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.920 down into the town and like starve it out essentially. 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.079 And while they're doing this, this huge gallic army that 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.920 outnumbers them like five ten to one up and attacks 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.200 the Roman army, and rather than like break off and retreat, 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.800 they just build a second wall around themselves, and so 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.040 they have one big wall around them and one big 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.040 wall around the city. It's just this like, yeah, no, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.160 we we can. We can just solve all of our 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.920 problems by by engineering, by building huge things like never never, 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.160 It's amazing. I it's it's it's but that's how they 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.480 got to the problem. It is how they got to 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.960 the problem. But in this case is not working, you 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.679 know what I mean? Why didn't I just well, the 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.120 thing is, though it did work for the Romans. Caesar 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.640 won that battle, and it worked in Chicago because they 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.280 did lift every goddamn building in the city up by 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.719 six Some were raised by as much as fourteen feet. Okay, 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.400 how does how is that literally physically possible? They've got 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.920 this like Screwjack Winch kind of thing system that just 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.160 sort of like lifts shut up and yeah, I don't know, 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.720 it's it's it's it's a whole thing. You can find 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.320 there's like it's very well documented. You know, this was 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.200 in the mid eight hundreds, so they had people did 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.280 like talk about how they were doing it. It's not 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.199 a mystery. Um. And it also provided the fact that 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.240 they're lifting the entire city up six ft by the 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.280 height of a dude basically. Um. That that gives the 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.920 city an opportunity to rebrand because it again had kind 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.360 of been like this frontier ramshackle town, and the people 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.839 who were in charge of things at the time were 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.160 able to use this to move buildings that didn't look 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.920 nice to the edges of the city and kind of 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.640 reorganized Chicagos that when everything was lifted, it looked the 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:38.000 way they wanted to, like a nice red light. But yeah, yeah, 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.000 I mean kind of was yeah, it was yeah. Um. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.120 And of course the instead of moving the lines are 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.520 moving the actual buildings. Yeah, you could just like move 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.679 all the buildings around. Um. Now, George's firm was not 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.920 the only one involved in raising the city. He was 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.960 actually one of a handful of firms all technically competing 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.120 with each other, but they all kind of agreed to 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.600 work together to determine who got which bids and to 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.679 maximize their profitability. It was like price fixing. I don't 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:03.280 know if that was illegal at the time, I think 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.160 it kind of is now. But they they all these 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.880 different firms, including George, is operating a cartel in order 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.080 to get as much money to lift the ship city 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.000 of Chicago up as they possibly can. And George is 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:15.960 not a small player in this, but he's not a 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.160 particularly large one either. Um. He had dreams of more. Um. 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:22.560 You know, this is a successful business. He's making a 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.280 comfortable living, but that was not enough for George pullman um. 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.240 And kind of after this, he winds up on a 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.720 train ride from Buffalo to Westfield, or during this, he 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.120 winds up on a train ride from Buffalo to Westfield, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.240 York to negotiate. Yeah, well yeah that this is where 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.120 the trains come in. So he's on a train ride 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:44.200 for a business meeting and it's train rides sucked back then. 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.640 Like that's kind of something that I didn't wasn't really 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.480 aware of before this. They were they didn't have trains 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.520 that were meant to be like in any way comfortable, 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.560 like you could get on one, but there was no 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.360 like that kind of romantic vision of like the fans 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.880 and the beautiful pointed train car with the bar and 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.040 none of that existed yet. It was awful, and to 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.280 illustrate how awful it was, I want to quote from 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:10.160 a write up by Richard Schneiro from Indiana State University 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.880 for the Northern Illinois University Digital Library. Quote. As railroad 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.119 mileages tripled between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty, the uncomfortable 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.560 conditions passengers and dirt on trips longer than a few 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.840 hours became intolerable. Passenger cars were not built to cushion jolts, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.520 windows constantly rattled. In the winter, wood burning stoves could 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.480 fill the cars with smoke and caused accidents, and in 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.120 the summer writers sweltered. It took three and a half 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.560 days to travel from Chicago to New York, and a 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.720 typical traveler resorted to hotels at night. The need for 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.840 a sleeping car was widely understood, but at the time 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.840 none were satisfactory. In eighteen fifty eight, Pollman began renovating 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.520 existing sleeping cars for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Eventually, 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.880 he established a small crew and began building cars from scratch. 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.760 In eighteen sixty four, his crew built the classic sleeping 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.120 car he called the Pioneer, with brocaded fabrics, handcrafted window 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.440 and door frames, plush red carpets, and richly ornamented paneling. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.480 The Pioneer was a study in luxury. It was also 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.200 the turning point and Pullman's rise to success. Pullman's luxurious 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.880 sleeping car appealed to America's fast growing wealthy class hungry 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.120 for status, and a new middle class that aspired to 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.760 the same outward markers of social standing. Pullman shrewdly took 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.520 advantage of this in his marketing strategy, which relied on 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.680 quality of service and prestige rather than low prices. So 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.560 he offers for the first time, really not even just 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.240 like first class, but just a train ride that wouldn't 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.479 make you want to die. Um, and it's hugely successful. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:38.280 Trains are blowing up at this point, and he's the 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:39.840 first guy to figure out how to make you want 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.400 to be on a train, you know. Yeah, very innovative 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.440 again like his father, I guess, also innovative. It's in yeah, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:50.320 smart mat Yeah, he gets he understands, you know that 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.280 this is an unfilled need, and he fills it ably. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.760 I think also, like, if you don't maybe this is 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.520 a hot take. I don't know, I don't care. I 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.160 think if he don't come from money money, Uh, you 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.080 understand more what the people need and want. It's the 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.560 same reason you guys like Bezos and and Bill Gates. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:09.800 I know there are people who would like consider them rich, 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.320 but they're their upper middle class and so it's it's 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.720 not enough money that they never had to do anything, 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.320 like they were going to need to find out something 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.160 to do, but it's enough money that they are able 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.560 to like pursue their dreams from an early age. Like 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.000 George's right, like he's he's where he's he's paid well 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.640 to work at this family shop at seventeen, he's able 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.960 to very easily go follow his dad and you know, 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.120 get involved in this new business. It's, uh, yeah, he's 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.520 working class enough money that yeah. Yeah, he's in his 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.520 early twenties right now, mid de late twenties I think 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.040 by now, um, and this is a big hit. So 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.880 he has his his his trained business is successful, but 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.240 it's not as big as as George wants to be. 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.400 Like he's he's doing very well. He's probably what you'd 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.880 call wealthy, but he's not like a massive industrial magnate. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.440 Um and he's he's he feels uncertain, like he he 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.040 doesn't really believe that his business can expand all that much. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.560 He kind of feels like, well, I found a profitable niche, 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.679 but that's all it's going to be, So he starts 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:11.040 looking for other ways to make money. By the late 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.080 eighteen fifties, the Pike's Peak gold rush was well underway 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.320 in Chicago or Colorado or Chicago. George decided to travel 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:19.840 there and see if he might be able to short 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.320 cut the route to wealth and power by striking it rich. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.080 The Pullman Museum writes that in short order, quote Pullman 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.240 realized that the real money in a gold rush is 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:32.600 made by supplying other fortune hunters. So he decides very quickly, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.160 it's fucking not worth it to go panning for gold. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.080 But I can sell ship to the people panning for gold. 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.919 And he forms a company to do this, moving freight 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.399 and crushing ore. And when that did well, he bought 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:47.159 sixteen hundred acres near Central City, Colorado, and they turned it. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.320 He turns this into a truck stop, basically like the 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.720 Gilded Age equivalent of a truck stop. He knows a 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:53.359 ton of people are passing in and out of this 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.920 specific area, um they're going to a place that's that's 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.520 real primitive, no amenities whatsoever. Um, So they're gonna want 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.760 something that they can head to on their way in 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.320 and out in order to like get drunk and eat 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.800 good food and sleep in a comfortable bed. So he 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.320 builds he builds this big truck stop, and for a 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.439 while he's kind of on this path of, you know, 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:18.879 getting forming little businesses here and there as he sees needs. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.679 UM and I don't. It doesn't look initially like his 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.320 train business is going to be huge. But the good 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.919 news is that from you know, if your job is 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.879 making trains more comfortable, then the eighteen fifties is a 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.480 little bit early for that to be a big business. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:39.080 But the eighteen sixties that's the fucking like, you know, 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.119 that's where you're gonna make money. Um. You said to 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.640 stick around long enough for yeah. Yeah. And the Civil 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.800 War does a lot for this, right. Trains are a 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.960 huge part of why the Union wins, um. And the 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.960 Civil War is furthermore helpful to his business because on 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.000 April fift eighteen sixty five, a dude shot Abraham Lincoln 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.760 right in his head. Now, this was widely seen as 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.080 terrible for honest Abe, and in the wake of a 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.720 devastating war. Like people needed a proper sendoff for a 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.320 wartime president, right, Like this beloved president gets killed. Everybody's 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.120 real fucking sad. There's just been a big war. Trains 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.600 are more famous and like prominent than ever. And George 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.639 looks at the president's death and sees opportunity. Um, so 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.440 let's capitalize on this tragedy. Absolutely. Yeah. So he's got 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.879 some friends in high places and he starts talking to 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.639 them and being like, hey, you gotta move that president's 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.560 dead ass body. I got these real fancy sleeping cars. 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.480 You can't just stick his corpse and like a shitty car. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.760 You gotta put him in something nice. Right, has a point, 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.240 He has a point, right exactly. People don't when you 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.679 see like like you open it and it's like what 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.160 you'd stick like a bunch of logs into or something. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.400 There's just a sliding around, exactly. And even if they 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.520 didn't want to, if someone presented that and then they said, no, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.119 that's pretty shipped, I guess that's an asshole move. You know, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.119 if you're presucted with a nicer option to the just 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.720 Abraham Lincoln in a oven, Yeah, it's very Yeah, it's 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:06.960 very smart of him to just be like, yeah, when 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:08.919 I'll give him one of my one of my one 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.800 of my nice cars to drive the president's dead ass 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.480 body around in um. And this actually posed a significant 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.399 logistical hurdle because a lot of train stations and platforms 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.080 and bridges weren't white enough to to take the car 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:24.959 that he had. It can only travel on some tracks, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.400 and so they get like the government widens a bunch 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.480 of like station platforms and bridges, which actually makes his 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.879 business even more profitable because now his cars can go 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.959 more places parallel. The canal widening from this, well, George 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.600 pull him a man made great by widening. It's always cyclical. 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.879 Life is cyclical. It's light, flat circle whatever, you know 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.560 what I mean. It all comes back to a flat circle, 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.800 pretty wide, and it's pretty wide, pretty wide. You know 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.320 what else is pretty wide? Sharine, Uh, I know you're 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.440 gonna say, Raytheon or some ship. The variety of products 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.240 Raytheon makes very wide. If you need a missile guidance 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.280