Pullman Company Archives
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PULLMAN COMPANY ARCHIVES THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY Guide to the Pullman Company Archives by Martha T. Briggs and Cynthia H. Peters Funded in Part by a Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Chicago The Newberry Library 1995 ISBN 0-911028-55-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................. v - xii ... Access Statement ............................................ xiii Record Group Structure ..................................... xiv-xx Record Group No . 01 President .............................................. 1 - 42 Subgroup No . 01 Office of the President ...................... 2 - 34 Subgroup No . 02 Office of the Vice President .................. 35 - 39 Subgroup No . 03 Personal Papers ......................... 40 - 42 Record Group No . 02 Secretary and Treasurer ........................................ 43 - 153 Subgroup No . 01 Office of the Secretary and Treasurer ............ 44 - 151 Subgroup No . 02 Personal Papers ........................... 152 - 153 Record Group No . 03 Office of Finance and Accounts .................................. 155 - 197 Subgroup No . 01 Vice President and Comptroller . 156 - 158 Subgroup No. 02 General Auditor ............................ 159 - 191 Subgroup No . 03 Auditor of Disbursements ........................ 192 Subgroup No . 04 Auditor of Receipts ......................... 193 - 197 Record Group No . 04 Law Department ........................................ 199 - 237 Subgroup No . 01 General Counsel .......................... 200 - 225 Subgroup No . 02 General Adjuster, Workmen’s Compensation ...... 226 - 228 Subgroup No . 03 General Claims Agent ....................... 229 - 233 Subgroup No . 04 Tax Agent .............................. 234 - 237 Record Group No . 05 Operating Department ....................................... 239 - 403 Subgroup No . 01 Office of the Vice President and General Manager ... 240 - 311 Subgroup No . 02 Chief Engineer .......................... 312 - 345 Subgroup No . 03 Chief Mechanical Officer .................. 346 - 377 Subgroup No. 04 Commissary ............................. 378 - 387 Subgroup No. 05 Purchases and Stores ....................... 388 - 399 Subgroup No . 06 Superintendent of Yards ................... 400 - 403 Record Group No . 06 Employee and Labor Relations Department ........................ 405 - 625 Subgroup No . 01 Labor Relations Department ................ 406 - 535 -iii- Table of Contents Record Group No . 06 Employee and Labor Relations Department (continued) Subgroup No . 02 Personnel Administration Department ........... 536 - 584 Subgroup No . 03 Pensions and Group Insurance Department ........ 585 - 601 Subgroup No . 04 Safety and Compensation Department ........... 602 - 611 Subgroup No . 05 Medicine and Sanitation Department ............ 612 - 622 Subgroup No . 06 Chief Special Agent ......................... 623 - 625 Record Group No . 07 Manufacturing Department ..................................... 627 - 642 Record Group No . 08 Passenger Traffic Department .................................... 643 - 672 Record Group No . 09 Public Relations Department ..................................... 673 - 688 Record Group No . 10 Subsidiary and Acquired Companies ................................ 689 - 710 Record Group No . 11 PullmanIncorporated .......................................... 711 -712 Record Group No . 12 Scrapbooks ............................................... 713 - 724 Record Group No . 13 Audiovisual ............................................... 725 - 739 Subgroup No . 01 Photographs ............................... 726 - 737 Subgroup No . 02 Films and Sound Recordings ................. 738 - 739 Record Group No . 14 Artifacts ................................................. 741 - 743 Record Group No . 15 Pullman. George Mortimer, 1883-1897 . Estate Papers ................. 745 - 759 Appendix A: Pullman’s Palace Car Company and Pullman Company Administrative Personnel ............................ 761 -772 Appendix B: Pullman-Related Collections Held by Other Institutions ....................................... 773 - 780 Index to Cataloguing Descriptions .................................. 781 - 794 . iv . INTRODUCTION In its century of operation the Pullman’s Palace Car Company and later Pullman Company rose quickly, employing thousands in the manufacture and operation of sleeping cars on railroads throughout North America. But the firm fell victim just as suddenly in the decades after World War II to the convenience, comfort, and speed of road and air travel. During its hey-day, Pullman systematized railroad car construction, building the largest car plant in the world at Pullman; attempted to improve the living conditions of its workers by applying business principles to the construction and operation of a model company town; revolutionized rail travel, operating the largest hotel in the world, at its peak accommodating 26,000,000 passengers a year; and dramatically increased employment opportunities for African-Americans, who served as porters on its cars. Beyond that, Pullman had a significant effect on the American labor movement and on the economies of the many cities where it operated shops and yards. Corporate History Recognizing a market for luxurious rail travel, George M. Pullman, who had earlier experimented with sleeping car construction and was wealthy from the provisioning and transporting of Colorado miners in the early 186O’s, incorporated the Pullman’s Palace Car Company in 1867. By the 1870’s his operations were already national and included the operation of sleeping cars under contract with the nation’s railroads, the manufacture of cars at the Detroit Works, and the creation of subsidiary firms serving Great Britain and Europe. In the three decades before the turn of the century, the prosperous company grew enormously and included a much heralded model company town adjacent to the new car works at Pullman, Illinois. Acclaim turned to condemnation following the nationwide strike that originated at the Pullman Car Works in 1894. Pullman died soon after in 1897, two years before his company absorbed its last major competitor, the Wagner Palace Car Company, which had been financed by the Vanderbilts. The Pullman’s Palace Car Company entered the twentieth century with a new name, the Pullman Company, and a new President, Robert Todd Lincoln. An extremely profitable virtual monopoly, the Pullman Company began replacing its wood cars with safer all steel bodied models (heavyweights) in its newly segregated Manufacturing Department and at the same time (1906) came under the regulation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. From 1918 to 1920, the United States Railroad Administration, citing the war emergency, assumed -v- Introduction control of the operating arm of the firm, renamed the Pullman Car Lines for the duration of federal control. The Pullman Company reached its peak during the 1920’s, manufacturing new heavyweight cars at a rapid pace. Seeking to expand its freight car production, Pullman merged with the Haskell and Barker Car Company in 1922. Edward F. Carry and his Haskell and Barker associates assumed the presidency and other executive positions in the enlarged Pullman Company. More reorganization took place in 1924 when the Pullman Company Manufacturing Department became a distinct firm, the Pullman Car and Manufacturing Corporation, and in 1927, when a parent or holding company, Pullman Incorporated, was created to oversee the two subsidiary firms. In 1929, following Carry’s death, President David A. Crawford engineered the merger of the Pullman Car and Manufacturing Corporation with the Standard Steel Car Company, forming the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company. During the first three decades of the twentieth century Pullman sought to impede the unionization of its workers by offering new benefits including a Pension Plan in 1914, a death benefit plan in 1922, and a Plan of Group Insurance in 1929. F. L. Simmons’ Industrial Relations Department, created in 1920, also directed the formation of company- sponsored occupationally-based unions under the Plan of Employee Representation. A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and other unions would not successfully organize company workers until the New Deal Railway Labor Act of 1934 forbade corporate interference in union matters. The Depression marked the end of Pullman prosperity. Both the number of car orders and sleeping car passengers declined precipitously. The firm laid off car plant and service workers, reduced fares, and introduced such innovations as the single occupancy section in an effort to fill its cars. During this decade the firm built fewer new cars, but it added air conditioning to its existing heavyweights and remodelled many into compartment sleepers. In 1940, just as orders for lightweight cars were increasing and sleeping car traffic was growing, the United States Department of Justice filed an anti-trust complaint against Pullman Incorporated in the U. S. District Court at Philadelphia (Civil Action No. 994). The government sought to separate the company’s sleeping car operations from its manufacturing activities. In 1944 the court concurred, ordering Pullman Incorporated to divest itself of either the Pullman Company (operating) or the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company (manufacturing). After three years of negotiations, the Pullman Company was finally sold to a consortium of fifty-seven railroads for around 40 million dollars. Carroll