Palace Car Prince: A Biography of George Mortimer Pullman

This is the first book-length biography of George Pullman (1831-1897), an entrepreneur whose name became synonymous with the golden age of U.S. railroad travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this impressively researched work, historian Liston Leyendecker portrays the transformation of a man of vision who ascended to prominence following the Civil War only to lose control of his empire in the face of rapidly changing world of industrial and labor relations. An adventurous young man, Pullman ventured westward to Chicago and Colorado from his upstate New York home, eventually leaving a successful store in the Colorado goldfields in 1863 to return to Chicago and form his Palace Car Company, the manufacturer of luxury sleeping cars.

As the Palace Car Company prospered, Pullman...who initially was regarded as a 'hands-on' manager...became removed from the company's daily affairs. He relied more and more on the advice of his brother Albert, and his growing isolation continued throughout his career and extended into family matters. The results of Pullman's aloofness became particularly apparent when, during the railroad workers' strike of 1894, he was publicly vilified as the archetypal 19th century robber-baron for his stubborn refusal to negotiate with the suffering strikers.

A corporate executive who distanced himself from his workers, Pullman exemplified the aging industrialist who failed to adapt his thinking to the emerging world of labor relations. Pullman died in 1897, an anachronism in a world he no longer understood.