Visit Pullman

The National Park Service maintains historic exhibits on the Pullman company and its workers in just the quarteracre around the Pullman Company clock tower, 11001 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Remaining company structures and workers’ housing are also nationally significant in terms of architecture, urban planning, transportation, labor relations and social history, President Barack Obama said in proclaiming the Pullman National Monument in February 2015. www.nps.gov/pull

“The Pullman Historic District tells rich, layered stories of American opportunity and discrimination, industrial engineering, corporate power and factory workers, new immigrants to this country and formerly enslaved people and their descendants…The events and themes associated with the Pullman Company continue to resonate today as employers and workers still seek opportunities for better lives.”

Across 111th Street from the former Pullman factory gate, The Pullman House Project (www.PullmanAtHome.org) is developing a Welcome Center at One Florence Boulevard (605 E. 111th St.). One Florence Boulevard was the most significant residential property in Pullman, with 11-foot ceilings and cherrywood trim, the home of H.H. Sessions, general manager of the Pullman Palace Car Company from 1886-1892. From about 1900 to the early 1940s, it was the Pullman Club, a private club for executives and managers of the Pullman Works.

A subset of the nonprofit Historic Pullman Foundation, the Pullman House Project is maintained by Bielenberg Historic Pullman House Foundation (BHBHF). BHB- HF owns or has an interest in five Pullman residential properties, which show how both executives and workers lived in the town. The Thomas Dunbar House is a 10-room home where the Scottish immigrant lived from 1898-1906. Honeymoon Row is an apartment from 1890. Visitors will see a worker’s three-room home – all of which would fit into the parlor of One Florence Boulevard. Family stories include that of John Davidson, one of the car painters, who with his wife Georgina raised 13 children in Pullman.

The Welcome Center and its Pullman Club Coffee Shop will be open Labor Day and during the Pullman House Walk, with late fall targeted for the remainder of its worker stories, according to a direct message on Facebook.

The Historic Pullman Foundation (HPF) was formed in 1973 with the mission of expanding on existing preservation efforts.

HPF offers first Sunday walking tours, 1:30-3 p.m. from the Pullman Exhibit Hall, 11141 S. Cottage Grove Ave. On display at the Exhibit Hall through December 30 is “Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography,” about

WWII rail infrastructure and the people who ran it, Tuesday- Sunday 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Admission is $10 adults, $5 children under 12.

The HPF Speaker Series is 4-5 p.m. every third Sunday at the Greenstone Church, 11211 S. St. Lawrence Ave. On September 18, Don Villar, secretarytreasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor, will discuss “Filipinos and Pullman.” As African American Pullman porters unionized in the 1920s, the Pullman Company recruited Filipinos as replacements. (Little did the company know the Filipinos would side with the union.) The October 16 HPF speaker will be Lee Bey, author of “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side,” who will take a closer look at Pullman, the neighborhood, and the factory. More information and registration at www. pullmanil.org

The 49th Annual Historic Pullman House Tour will be 11 a.m.-5 p.m. October 8 & 9. It is the one weekend each year when Pullman residents open their 140-year-old, landmark homes to the public. Nearly 1,000 of the town’s original rowhouses and several major buildings are still intact and in various stages of restoration.

Tickets are $25 adults at the door/$20 in advance, $20 seniors. Co-sponsored by the Pullman Civic Organization and the Historic Pullman Foundation, tour information is available at www.pullmanil.org, 773.785.8901 or pullmanhousetour2022.eventbrite.com

The Hotel Florence, 11111 S. Forestville, was named after George Pullman’s oldest daughter and opened in 1881 as accommodations for railroad CEOs on buying trips to the town and rentals for supply representatives to the company. The Pullman family also maintained a luxurious suite there. The Historic Pullman Foundation (HPF) purchased the hotel in 1975 to save it from demolition and it has been part of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources since 1991. It is closed for renovations. www2.illinois.gov/dnrhistoric/Experience/Sites/ Northeast/Pages/Pullman-Site.aspx

The A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, 10406 S. Maryland Ave., is named for the original Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) union president. Founded in 1995, its mission is to “promote, honor and celebrate the legacy of A. Philip Randolph and contributions made by African Americans to America’s labor movement, with a significant focus on the African American Railroad Employee.” Located in an Historic District row house, the museum is temporarily closed due to COVID, but is planning expansion in the fall. Its virtual tour is available on the museum’s website: aprpullmanportermuseum.org

“Handmaidens for Travelers” at the Newberry Library galleries through September 16, tells the stories of the Pullman Company maids, long overshadowed by the more well-known Pullman porters.

Laboring in the interior of a railroad car was, at times, better than other employment opportunities. But Pullman maids couldn’t escape gender and racial discrimination on the rails. Drawing on extensive research in the Newberry’s Pullman Company archives, visitors can see a range of materials, including several that have never before been presented to the public: applications and employee cards, an instruction manual for maids, advertisements, photographs, and one maid’s handwritten account of her work history.

“Handmaidens for Travelers: The Pullman Company Maids” has been curated by Miriam Thaggert, associate professor of English at the University of Buffalo. Thaggert is also the author of “Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad.” Located at 60 W. Walton St., the galleries are open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Newberry exhibitions are always free; no advance tickets or registration required.