Simon Cordery

Simon Cordery's latest book is Gilded Age Entrepreneur: The Curious Life of American Financier Albert Benton Pullman (Cornell University Press, 2025). The influential but little-known older brother of George Pullman and the craftsman of the family, Albert Pullman designed the first luxurious Pullman railroad cars and hosted promotional trips to show them off. In those heady early days, he met national business and political leaders and hired the first Pullman porters.

Albert and George made a formidable team, but as the Pullman Company grew, Albert's role shrank. He increasingly tried to invest in other businesses, often with disastrous results, appearing before the Supreme Court after one catastrophic insurance investment, running afoul of federal banking regulations, and failing in an attempt to corner wheat futures. With evermore unsuccessful speculations, Albert was tempted by extralegal land sales and entered the silver-mining game.

Finally, his own family in crisis and his relationship with George shattered, Albert Pullman launched into one last round of adventurous investments with mixed results. Gilded Age Entrepreneur demonstrates how Albert Pullman embodied the small-time investors legion after the Civil War. From banking and insurance to manufacturing and mining, a host of hopeful dreamers like Albert Pullman fueled the circulation of capital by forging political connections, creating and losing businesses, issuing shares, and longing for profit.

Simon Cordery is a professor in and chair of the Department of History at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.