Why Chicago Wants to Turn a Struggling Neighborhood Into a National Park

In certain contexts – if you happen to be into the early American labor movement, the architecture of 19th century company towns, or black history during the Great Migration – the Pullman neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago is a significant place. Before it was overtaken by the growing city to the north, Pullman was a planned company town on the prairie founded in 1880 by industrialist George Pullman, who needed a place to manufacture his rail cars and to house the workers who built them.

At the time, Pullman was America's first model industrial town, with company housing and company stores (people who worked for Pullman, in other words, were invited to give their paychecks right back to him). Pullman (the place and the company) is also noteworthy for several key events in the history of organized labor: An 1894 strike you may recall from high school history class (Pullman deviously tried to cut wages without cutting rent), and a milestone in 1937 when the company agreed to recognize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the country's first black union.