People-Powered

People-Powered. . , Behind the Pullman Car Works' elegant front, the car shops to the rear imposed unforgiving industrial discipline., Skilled immigrants filled many of the early jobs at Pullman's Chicago shops. Men labored in cavernous spaces as machines clattered and clanked, pulleys squeaked, and belts whirred. Women worked in industrial buildings sewing fabric, washing dirty linens in huge vats, and cleaning and resupplying car interiors., Contract workers labored 10 or 11 hours a day, six days a week, and were paid by the piece. When managers lowered piecework prices, workers had to produce more to earn the same pay. Everyone felt pressure to work faster and harder, like machines., Managers and foremen sometimes abused workers verbally, even physically. Thomas Heathcote, a woodworker and leader of the 1894 Pullman Strike, publicly accused foreman George Trumblay of striking a worker in the face.,

"The greatest number of woodcarvers I ever saw at work together was at Pullman's Car Works, a dozen or so miles out of Chicago. It was 1893, at the time of the World's Fair. There were fully 300 of them, all employed on piecework, and the majority earning not more than they would have done in England... I recall those working in the rear complained bitterly how severely they were handicapped in regard to light." , Harry Hems, Exeter, England, in G. Lister Sutcliffe, editor, The Modern Carpenter, Joiner, and Cabinet-Maker, 1903

, [Captions:] , Left Seamstresses sew cloth for table linen, mattress ticking, upholstery backing, and other passenger comforts., Bottom left This 1907 view of a wood car body in the Erecting Shops shows the cluttered aisles and tight spaces where car builders worked., Bottom This 1915 scene in a Pullman repair shop shows the overhead shafts, wheels, and belts that powered machines and endangered the workers.