The RUTHLESS Railway Tycoon Behind America’s Most Famous Company Town (DARKER Than You Think)

George Pullman's workers asked for their wages back. His company said it couldn't afford to pay them. They asked for lower rent instead, and the company refused that too. Their employer owned their homes, and within weeks a dispute inside his beautiful model town would disrupt railroads across the country and bring in federal troops. This George Pullman documentary tells the true story of the Pullman company town south of Chicago, the Pullman Palace Car Company and its sleeping cars, the wage cuts of 1894, the Pullman Strike and the national railroad boycott, Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union, the federal injunction and troops, and the court ruling that forced the company to sell the town. It follows what happens when the boss is also the landlord. Did anyone in your family ever rent from the company that paid their wages? Tell us in the comments, and subscribe for more documentaries about industrial power and its human cost. When the wages fell, the question was whether George Pullman would let the people in his model town negotiate the terms of staying there. The answer he gave helped close factories, stop trains, and send soldiers into a dispute that began with a request for enough money to live.