Pullman, George Mortimer (1831-1897), was an American businessman. He is remembered chiefly in connection with the railroad sleeping car. Pullman came to control the business of railroad sleeping cars when trains were a major means of transportation in the United States.
Pullman was born on March 3, 1831, in Brocton, New York. He learned the trade of a cabinetmaker and then worked as a construction contractor. Moving to Chicago in 1855, he became interested in improving sleeping cars then in operation. In 1858, he remodeled two coaches into sleeping cars for the Chicago & Alton Railroad. Pullman and his friend, Ben Field, then designed a larger and more elaborate sleeping car which they named Pioneer. It entered service in 1865. The car was converted from day to night use by swinging down the upper berths, folding the seats to make them into lower berths, and separating the berths by curtains.
Pullman organized the Pullman Palace Car Company (later called the Pullman Company) in 1867. This firm built, staffed, and operated sleeping cars on all major railroads. In 1868, Pullman introduced a dining car that had its own kitchen. His firm introduced parlor cars in 1875 and the vestibule for direct connection between cars in 1887. He died on Oct. 19, 1897.
By 1899, after his death, Pullman’s company possessed a virtual monopoly on the sleeping-car business in the United States. The company’s manufacturing plant was in Pullman, Illinois, a town that was built and owned by the Pullman Company and is now part of Chicago. The area was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. In 2015, President Barack Obama announced that he had designated the Pullman Historic District a national monument to be operated by the National Park Service.
