Elijah Olomoniyi and other rangers at Pullman National Monument spent a few hours on a recent Saturday in a neighborhood just to the north of their facility, hoping to meet their neighbors.
“We had about 12 or 13 people show up,” Olomoniyi said. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but these are, essentially, not the most exciting events. They’re for people to come up and let us know what’s going on.”
So the National Park Service employees were happy “to have that level of interest,” he said. It was one of a series of meetings they’d been hosting in and around Pullman, including in areas where the positive effects of having a historic attraction nearby haven’t been as strong, such as North Pullman and Altgeld Gardens further to the south.
The Pullman officials are hoping to recapture some of the impact the old factory site has had on the people in surrounding areas over its long history. Famous as one of the country’s first company towns, where the employer also became landlord, grocer and dry goods merchant, Pullman’s place in history became etched even deeper when workers demanded changes.
One of the notable times that happened was in 1894, when Pullman workers went on a strike that grew to grip the entire nation.
“There’s an argument to be made that it’s the most important site in labor history,” Olomoniyi said. “One of the reasons we have Labor Day today is the strike of 1894, and it’s nationwide effect.
“That strike essentially shut down all rail travel in the U.S. for about a month and a half in the middle of the summer … at a time when that was the only way to get from one place to another. It all started with this 4,000 acre area south of Chicago.”
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President Barack Obama declared much of the old Pullman site a national monument in 2015, but it took several years for the National Park Service to get things rolling there. Finally, the NPS’s new visitors center at Pullman officially opened last Labor Day. There were tours of historic rail cars, speeches, actors portraying George Pullman and Mother Jones, and other fanfare. The iconic Hotel Florence building, owned by the state and still under renovation, even opened its doors for the day.
“It was as big as it ever gets at Pullman,” Olomoniyi said.
As the monument’s second Labor Day approaches, they’ll erect tents to shelter speakers and politicians. Groups of musicians will perform labor songs, Latin jazz and West African drum music, and the visitor’s center will be open for exhibits and a kids craft activity.
Plans for this year’s celebration, from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 5 at the national monument, Cottage Grove Avenue and 111th Street, will be somewhat toned down from last year’s grand opening. There won’t be tours of train cars and the Florence Hotel’s doors will remain shut. But site tours led by rangers will alternate with neighborhood walks guided by the Historic Pullman Foundation. George Pullman won’t be on hand, but Mother Jones is set to return to talk about women and the labor movement.
Pullman is the National Park Service’s first and only facility in Chicago, and while last year’s grand opening seemed designed to draw attention from far and wide, this year’s Labor Day celebration is more reflective of its efforts to become more ingrained in its wider neighborhood.
“This year we’re focused on a theme of ‘building solidarity through diversity,'” Olomoniyi said. “We’ll be talking about how it resonates through the area today, and how diversity and inclusion helped strengthen the labor movement as a whole. That’s not just the strike of 1894, but also the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters established in the 1930s, and how that led to international changes.”
Programming will examine the many forms of diversity at Pullman over the years. At the start, there was diversity among ethnic European groups fostered by technological advances. The immigrants from Ireland and Italy who were expert woodworkers gave way to those from Eastern European countries such as Ukraine and Russia whose expertise was in metalworking.
African American workers were hired for factory jobs and as railcar porters, eventually organizing and securing their spot in labor history.
Celebrating that diversity, however, wasn’t a historic concept at Pullman. The skilled workers and company executives tended to live in South Pullman, while the unskilled workers were funneled to the north side of the complex, Olomoniyi said. When George Pullman was legally forced to sell off the residential holdings of his company town, South Pullman residents generally were better able to afford to purchase their homes, while those to the north mostly just switched landlords, leading to a more itinerant population.
“Historically, North Pullman has been kind of left out of what’s been going on at Pullman,” he said. The Historic Pullman Foundation has concentrated on architecturally significant neighborhood elements such as the 19th century row houses found south of the factory complex, and many historic structures there were protected starting in the 1970s.
“North Pullman has seen a lot more change happen,” Olomoniyi said. “Over time, buildings were torn down, additions were made that weren’t necessarily historically accurate. But there still are homes and buildings there that reflect the initial Pullman architecture.”
He said the goal now is to extend Pullman National Monument’s reach, and let people know that it’s their park, no matter what side they’re from.
“We’ve been going out in person, going door to door, putting up signs on every street corner,” Olomoniyi said. We’re going to do outreach events with schools and community groups. Getting North Pullman involved has been a big goal of ours.”
He said one of the stories that resonates with people is how Pullman Porters’ organizing efforts helped establish the African American middle class.
“And it wasn’t just an African American thing,” Olomoniyi said. “There were branches in the Philippines and Mexico of porters working in those areas.
“It was a precursor of the Civil Rights Movement of the ’50s and ’60s.”
As Pullman National Monument prepares to mark the anniversary of its grand opening in a couple of weeks with a celebration of the area’s diversity, Olomoniyi thinks the inclusivity efforts are off to a good start. But he knows there’s more work to do.
“We’re still very young as a park site,” he said.
Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at [email protected].