Presidential Documents

10315 

Federal Register 

Vol. 80, No. 37 

Wednesday, February 25, 2015 

Title 3— 

The President 

Proclamation 9233 of February 19, 2015 

Establishment of the Pullman National Monument 

By the President of the United States of America 

A Proclamation 

The Pullman National Historic Landmark District (Pullman Historic District) 

in Chicago, Illinois, typifies many of the economic, social, and design currents 

running through American life in the late 19th and early 20th century, 

yet it is unlike any other place in the country. Industrialist George Mortimer 

Pullman built the model town to house workers at his luxury rail car 

factories. Although his goal was to cure the social ills of the day, the 

tight control he exercised over his workers helped spark one of the Nation’s 

most widespread and consequential labor strikes. The remaining structures 

of the Pullman Palace Car Company (Pullman Company), workers’ housing, 

and community buildings that make up the Pullman Historic District are 

an evocative testament to the evolution of American industry, the rise of 

unions and the labor movement, the lasting strength of good urban design, 

and the remarkable journey of the Pullman porters toward the civil rights 

movement of the 20th century. 

The model factory town of Pullman was created in the 1880s by the Pullman 

Company to manufacture railroad passenger cars and house workers and 

their families. Company founder George Pullman saw the positive incentives 

of good housing, parks, and amenities as a way to foster a happy and 

reliable workforce. Pullman and his wealthy industrialist peers could not 

fail to see the poor living conditions in which many of their workers lived. 

The industrial revolution drew hundreds of thousands to urban areas, which 

led to a rise in slums and social ills. The widening gulf between management 

and workers contributed to labor unrest, which was acutely felt in Chicago. 

Pullman was convinced that capital and labor should cooperate for mutual 

benefit and sought to address the needs of his workers using his philosophy 

of capitalist efficiency. He attempted an uncommon solution to the common 

problems of the day by creating a model town. 

Pullman engaged young architect Solon Spencer Beman and landscape architect Nathan F. Barrett to plan the town and design its buildings and public 

spaces to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing. Beman designed housing in the simple yet elegant Queen Anne style and included Romanesque 

arches for buildings that housed shops and services. Though he strove 

to avoid monotony, Beman imbued the town with visual continuity. The 

scale, detailing, and architectural sophistication of the community were 

unprecedented. Barrett broke up the monotony of the grid of streets with 

his landscape design. Trees and street lights enlivened the streetscape. Unified, orderly, and innovative in its design, the model town of Pullman, 

then an independent town south of Chicago’s city limits, became an internationally famous experiment in planning and attracted visitors from far 

and wide. 

The model factory town of Pullman is considered the first planned industrial 

community in the United States, and served as both an influential model 

and a cautionary tale for subsequent industrial developments. The beauty, 

sanitation, and order George Pullman provided his workers and their families 

were not without cost. Pullman believed people did not value the things 

they did not pay for. The Pullman Company owned every building and 


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charged rents that would ensure a return on the company’s investment 

in building the town. He also created a system of social control and hierarchy 

discernible in the standards of conduct for residents and in the architecture 

and layout of the community that can still be seen today in the wellpreserved Pullman Historic District. For example, the larger, more ornate, 

and finely finished houses on Arcade Row were reserved for company 

officers, while junior workers resided in smaller, simpler row houses, and 

single and unskilled workers resided in tenement blocks with less ornamentation located farther away from the town’s public face. 

In 1893, the worst economic depression in American history prior to the 

Great Depression hit the country in general and the railroad industry in 

particular. Orders at the Pullman Company declined. The Pullman Company 

lowered its workers’ wages but not the rents it charged those workers for 

company housing. These measures angered the workers and sparked the 

Pullman strike of 1894. The American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. 

Debs, had formed the year prior in Chicago, with membership open to 

all white railroad employees of any profession. In solidarity, American Railway Union members nationwide boycotted Pullman cars, disrupting rail 

traffic across much of the Nation. Thus, the strike that began as a local 

walkout on May 11, 1894, grew into one of American history’s largest 

labor actions, paralyzing most of the railroads west of Detroit and threatening 

the national economy. 

On June 27, 1894, as the Pullman strike was growing, the Congress passed 

legislation designating Labor Day a Federal holiday, and President Grover 

Cleveland signed it the next day. Thirty-one States had already adopted 

the holiday, but it was the Pullman strike of 1894 that spurred final Federal 

action in an attempt to placate workers across the Nation. 

At its peak, the Pullman strike affected some 250,000 workers in 27 States 

and disrupted Federal mail delivery. The United States secured a court 

injunction declaring the strike illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act, 

and President Cleveland ultimately intervened with Federal troops. The 

strike ended violently by mid-July, a labor defeat with national reverberations. 

George Pullman did not loosen his tight control of the town of Pullman 

after the strike ended. Illinois sued the Pullman Company in August 1894, 

alleging that the company’s ownership and operation of the town violated 

its corporate charter. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed in an 1898 decision, 

and ordered the company to sell all non-industrial land holdings in the 

town. By that time, Robert Todd Lincoln, the oldest son of President Abraham 

Lincoln and general counsel of the Pullman Company during the 1894 

strike, had succeeded George Pullman as president of the company. In 

1907, the company finally sold most of its residential properties to comply 

with the Illinois Supreme Court’s order. 

The Pullman Company would again be the focus of a nationally important 

labor event when, in 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), 

an influential African American union founded by A. Philip Randolph, 

won a labor contract for the Pullman porters from the company. The Pullman 

Company leased its cars to railroads and directly employed the attendants— 

porters, waiters, and maids. At its founding, the company hired recently 

freed former house slaves as porters. The porters remained a group of exclusively African American men throughout the company’s history, playing 

a significant role in the rise of the African American middle class. By 

1937, the Pullman Company had been the Nation’s largest employer of 

African Americans for over 20 years and Pullman porters composed 44 

percent of the Pullman Company workforce. The 1937 contract was the 

first major labor agreement between a union led by African Americans 

and a corporation and is considered one of the most important markers 

since Reconstruction toward African American independence from racist 

paternalism. The agreement served as a model for other African American 

workers and significantly contributed to the rise of the civil rights movement 

in the United States. The Pullman Historic District is an important site 


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for understanding the iconic historic connection between the Pullman porters, 

the BSCP, and the Pullman Company. 

The architecture, urban planning, transportation, labor relations, and social 

history of the Pullman Historic District have national significance. 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, strikes and collective bargaining. The events and themes 

associated with the Pullman Company continue to resonate today as employers and workers still seek opportunities for better lives. 

WHEREAS section 320301 of title 54, United States Code (known as the 

‘‘Antiquities Act’’), authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare 

by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated 

upon the lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be national 

monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits 

of which shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper 

care and management of the objects to be protected; 

WHEREAS the Pullman Historic District was designated a National Historic 

Landmark on December 30, 1970, establishing its national significance based 

on its importance in social history, architecture, and urban planning; 

WHEREAS the Governor of Illinois, Members of Congress, the City of Chicago, 

other State, local, and private entities, including Pullman neighborhood 

organizations, and others have expressed support for the establishment of 

a national monument in the Pullman Historic District and its inclusion 

in the National Park System; 

WHEREAS the State of Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has donated 

to the United States certain lands and interests in lands within the Pullman 

Historic District, including fee title to the Administration Clock Tower Building and an access easement thereto, for administration by the Secretary 

of the Interior (Secretary) through the National Park Service in accordance 

with the provisions of the Antiquities Act and other applicable laws; 

WHEREAS it is in the public interest to preserve and protect the historic 

objects in the Pullman Historic District, Chicago, Illinois; 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States 

of America, by the authority vested in me by section 320301 of title 54, 

United States Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are 

situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the 

Federal Government to be the Pullman National Monument (monument) 

and, for the purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as a part thereof 

all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government within the ‘‘National Monument Boundary’’ described on the accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation. 

These reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass approximately 

0.2397 acres, together with appurtenant easements for all necessary purposes. 

All Federal lands and interests in lands within the ‘‘National Monument 

Boundary’’ described on the accompanying map are hereby appropriated 

and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, 

or other disposition under the public land laws, from location, entry, and 

patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating 

to mineral and geothermal leasing. 

The establishment of the monument is subject to valid existing rights. Lands 

and interests in lands not owned or controlled by the Federal Government 

within the ‘‘National Monument Boundary’’ described on the accompanying 

map shall be reserved as a part of the monument, and objects identified 

above that are situated upon those lands and interests in lands shall be 

part of the monument, upon acquisition of ownership or control by the 

Federal Government. The ‘‘National Monument Boundary’’ described on 


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the accompanying map is confined to the smallest area compatible with 

the proper care and management of the objects to be protected within 

those boundaries. 

The Secretary shall manage the monument through the National Park Service, 

pursuant to applicable legal authorities, consistent with the purposes and 

provisions of this proclamation. The Secretary shall prepare a management 

plan for the monument within 3 years of the date of this proclamation. 

The management plan shall ensure that the monument fulfills the following 

purposes for the benefit of present and future generations: (1) to preserve 

the historic resources; (2) to interpret the industrial history and labor struggles 

and achievements associated with the Pullman Company, including the rise 

and role of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and (3) to interpret 

the history of urban planning and design of which the planned company 

town of Pullman is a nationally significant example. 

The management plan shall, among other provisions, set forth the desired 

relationship of the monument to other related resources, programs, and 

organizations within its boundaries, as well as at other places related to 

the Pullman Company and the stories associated with it. The management 

planning process shall provide for full public involvement, including coordination with the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago and consultation 

with interested parties including museums and preservation and neighborhood organizations. The management plan shall identify steps to be taken 

to provide interpretive opportunities and coordinate visitor services for the 

entirety of the Pullman Historic District to the extent practicable and appropriate for a broader understanding of the monument and the themes that 

contribute to its national significance. 

The National Park Service is directed to use applicable authorities to seek 

to enter into agreements with others to address common interests and promote management efficiencies, including provision of visitor services, interpretation and education, establishment and care of museum collections, 

and preservation of historic objects. 

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall be the 

dominant reservation. 

Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, 

injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not to locate 

or settle upon any of the lands thereof. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this nineteenth day 

of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand fifteen, and of the 

Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtyninth. 

Billing code 3295–F5–P 


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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 37 / Wednesday, February 25, 2015 / Presidential Documents 10319 

[FR Doc. 2015–04090 

Filed 2–24–15; 11:15 a.m.] 

Billing code 4310–10–C 


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111th St 

r • , National Monument 

II.- • Boundary 

r.mmm Pullman National 

Eili.ili:ill Historic Landmark District 

....... 

• • Pullman State Historic Site ...... * U.S.Fee 

• Historic Buildings 

or Landmarks 

~ Residential 

~Railroad 

OFFICE: Lands Resources Program Center 

REGION: Midwest Region 

PARK: Punman National Monument 

ALPHA: PULL 

TOTAL ACREAGE: •1. 203.48 

MAP NUMBER: 590/125,485 

DATE: February 2015 

600 0 600