Re: Marketing Opportunity with D&RG 470

Chris Webster Wrote:
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> As I understand it,
> Pullman
> National Monument is being preserved in
> order to tell the story of the awful labor strife
> that occurred there, a supposedly idyllic company
> town. The local labor strife led to a national
> strike that shutdown the railroads, caused state
> and federal troops to be brought in, riots, etc.
>
> It just doesn't seem to be an appropriate place to
> advertise a tourist railroad, IMHO.

The Pullman car builders were required to live in the company owned town renting their rooms or houses. When the depression in the early 1890s occurred the company laid off workers, reduced wages, piece work; but it still required the same rents, etc. The remaining workers went on strike and a new railroad industry union aligned itself with supporting this by refusing to operate trains including passenger or freight cars built by Pullman.

A recent book about the strike is The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America. by Jack Kelley and published by St. Martins Press in 2018. You can find this book at Amazon and elsewhere.

Brian Norden