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Producing Visual Traditions Among Workers: The Uses of Photography at Pullman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Larry Peterson
Larry Peterson
Affiliation:
City University of New York
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Extract

From 1880 to 1980 the Pullman Company repeatedly turned to photography to shape the attitudes and behavior of its workers. It built the Pullman Car Works and adjoining town on the fringes of Chicago as a model industrial community with the goal of resolving the endemic conflict between capital and labor. However, despite its claim that the model town was intended as purely “practical” philanthropy—that is, that sanitary and beautiful conditions would increase profits by improving workers' performance and preventing strikes—Pullman could not achieve its goal without also creating affective bonds with workers.

Type
Tradition and the Working Class
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 42 , Fall 1992 , pp. 40 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1992

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References

Notes

This paper was written with a grant from the Reva and David Logan Grants in Support of New Writing on Photography program, sponsored by the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, to which I would like to express my thanks. It is condensed from a version that appeared in VIEWS: The Journal of Photography in New England 13 (Spring 1992) and is reprinted by permission. A section on landmark preservation in Pullman after 1960 has been deleted, and the section on patriotism added. I would also like to thank Leslie E. Peterson. Edna H. Peterson. Paul Petraitis, Don Horn. Charles Mitchell, Chester Donati, Harold T. Wolff, Shirley Locado, and Frank Beaverdick for their generous help in supplying photographs and information.

1. Gilbert, James, Perfect Cities: Chicago's Utopias of 1893 (Chicago, 1991), esp. 18–19, 45–46, 131–68;Google ScholarBuder, Stanley, Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880–1930 (New York, 1967);Google ScholarLindsey, Almont, The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval (Chicago, 1964);Google ScholarStein, Leon, ed., The Pullman Strike (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.

2. Nye, David E., Image Worlds: Corporate Identity at General Electric, 1880–1930 (Cambridge, 1985), esp. 31–56;Google ScholarLüdtke, Alf, “Zu den Chancen einer ‘visuellen Geschichte’, Industriearbeit in historischen Fotografien.” Journal für Geschichte 3 (May–June 1986): 25–31Google Scholar.

3. Koopman, Henry R., “Pullman's Photographic Department,” Pullman Car Works Standard 4 (August 1919): 12;Google Scholar“Pullman Incorporated: 105 Years of Photography—From Glass Plates to Video Tape,” The Professional Photographer 99 (May 1972): 53–55;Google ScholarThe Carbuilder 31 (December 1969): 8–9. The company newspapers and magazines were the Pullman Car Works Standard, 1916–19; The Pullman News, 1922–58; The Carbuilder, 1940–80; Pullman Standard Carworker, 1943–50(?): and PullmanStandard Log, 1943–45.

4. See Buder, Pullman; Hales, Peter B., Silver Cities: The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839–1915 (Philadelphia, 1984);Google ScholarHusband, Joseph, The Story of the Pullman Car (Chicago, 1917)Google Scholar.

5. The following analysis is based on Pullman Illustrated (1883); Johnson, T.S., Photos of Pullman (1885): The Story of Pullman (Chicago. 1893);Google Scholar and MrsDoty, Duane, The Town of Pullman: Its Growth with Brief Accounts of its industries (Pullman, 1893)Google Scholar.

6. Taylor's portfolio, in the Art Institute of Chicago, is published in Doty, . Town of Pullman (Pullman Civic Organization reprint. 1974).Google Scholar

7. Husband, Story of the Pullman Car, chs. 8, 9; BuderPullman, 218–19; Harding, Carroll P., George M. Pullman (1831–1897) and the Pullman Company (New York, 1951);Google ScholarSolidarity, 6 August 1910; 17 December 1910; 1 July 1911; 8 April 1916; The Suburban 13 (April 1916):8; Taylor, Graham, Satellite Cities: A Study of Industrial Suburbs (New York. 1915), 63–65;Google ScholarManzardo, Mario, “Un dicennio di sviluppo: Un periodo di contrasti,” La Parola del Popolo 24 (July–August 1974): 115–17;Google Scholaridem, “Liberi Cuori,” in Rank and File: Personal Histories by Working-Class Organizers, ed. Alice and Staughton Lynd (Boston, 1973), 134–36; Weinstein, James, The Decline of Socialism in America 1912–1925 (New York, 1969), 145–46;Google ScholarHirsch, Susan, “Rethinking the Sexual Division of Labor: Pullman Repair Shops, 1900–1969,” Radical History Review 35 (April 1986). On changes in photography, see Nye, Image Worlds;Google ScholarTaft, Robert, Photography and the American Scene: A Social History 1839–1889 (New York, 1964), esp. ch. 21;Google ScholarJenkins, Reese, Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photographic Industry 1839–1925 (Baltimore, 1975)Google Scholar.

8. The following analysis is based on Husband, Story of the Pullman Car; Pullman Car Works Standard; Pullman News; Some Interesting Notes and Views of Pullman Car Works Located at Pullman, Chicago (Chicago, ca. 1923–1924).Google Scholar See also, Nye, Image Worlds; Rogge, Henning, Fabrikwelt um die Jahrhundertwende am Beispiel der AEG Maschinenfabrik in Berlin-Wedding (Cologne, 1983).Google Scholar

9. Klingender, Francis D., Art and the Industrial Revolution, rev. ed. (New York, 1970);Google ScholarSchrenk, Klaus, “Industriedarstellungen in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und Aspekte ihres gesellschaftlichen Charakters.” Kritische Berichte 3 (1975): 13–31;Google ScholarJanke, Karl and Wagner, Monika, “Das Verhältnis von Arbeiter und Maschinerie im Industriebild: Rekonstruktion einer Bilderfolge zur Schwerindustrie von François Bonhommé,” Kritische Berichte 4 (1976):5–26;Google ScholarLucie-Smith, Edward and Dars, Celestine, Work and Struggle: The Painter as Witness, 1870–1914 (New York, 1977);Google ScholarSekula, Allan, “Photography between Capital and Labor,” in Mining Photographs and Other Pictures 1948–1968: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Shedden Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton, ed. Macgillivray, Don and Sekula, Allan (Halifax, 1983), 193–268;Google ScholarThomas, Alan, The Expanding Eye: Photography and the Nineteenth Century Mind (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

10. Lewis Hine, for example, successfully avoided these problems, despite technical obstacles.

11. Based on a content analysis of the Pullman Car Works Standard and Pullman News.

12. Conclusions based on Pullman personnel records, South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society, South Holland, Illinois; an analysis of the Paint Department of the Passenger Car Finishing Department in the Pullman News; and interviews with former Pullman workers.

13. Based on an analysis of the Pullman News, 1930–1940. See also, Stott, William, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (Chicago, 1986). 67–73Google Scholar.

14. One purpose of the new magazine was to give the manufacturing division a separate identity and thus reduce the appearance of monopoly. The following paragraphs are based on an analysis of The Carbuilder. Pullman Standard Carworker, and Pullman-Standard Log. On the new generation of photographers who implemented the changes, see The Carbuilder 10 (April 1949); 7 (October, November, December 1946); 8 (April, June 1947).

15. Reid, Robert L. and Viskochil, Larry A., eds., Chicago and Downstate: Illinois as Seen by the Farm Security Administration Photographers 1936–1943 (Urbana, 1989), esp. 167–76;Google ScholarStange, Maren, Symbols of Ideal Life: Social Documentary in America 1890–1950 (Cambridge, 1989), chs. 3–4;Google ScholarDaniel, Peter, et al. , Official Images: New Deal Photography (Washington, D.C., 1987);Google ScholarPlattner, Steven W., Roy Stryker: USA, 1943–1950: The Standard Oil (New Jersey) Photography Project (Austin, 1983);Google Scholar Stott, Documentary Expression, chs. 12–13.

16. Based on an analysis of The Carbuilder. For special issues, see The Carbuilder 4 (December 1943); 10 (July 1949); 15 (May 1955); 24 (May–June 1961); 31 (October 1969); Pullman Standard Carworker, 17 June, 1949. See also Our Community (published by Pullman Trust and Savings Bank) 1 (Spring 1958).

17. Based on an analysis of The Carbuilder and Steel Labor.

18. Compare The Carbuilder 15 (May 1955), and Sumner, S. Sollitt Construction Company. Engineers-Contractors.Property and Facilities of Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company (Chicago. July 1952), in South Suburban Genealogical and Historical SocietyGoogle Scholar.

19. See “The Town of Pullman: Pullman Co. Album of Photographs,” Chicago Historical Society; Pullman Incorporated, Pullman (Chicago, ca. 1927–1929);Google Scholar Pullman, Annual Reports (illustrated with photographs from the early 1940s); Property and Facilities at Pullman.

20. The following is based on an analysis of The Workers' Call, Chicago, 1899–1902;Google ScholarChicago Socialist, 1902–1908; Chicago Daily Socialist, 1908–1912; Industrial Union Bulletin, 1907–1909; Solidarity, and its successors New Solidarity and Industrial Solidarity, 1909 ff.; Industrial Worker; The One Big Union Monthly, 1919–1920; Industrial Pioneer, 1921–1924; Industrial Union News, Detroit, 1912–1924; The Suburban (AFL), Whiting, 1903–1918. See also, Taft, Photography and the American Scene, 446–47. Holt, Glen E.. “Chicago through a Camera Lens: An Essay on Photography as History,” Chiago History 1 (Spring 1971):167–69;Google ScholarKornbluh, Joyce L., ed., Rebel Voices:An IWWAnthology. 2d ed. (Chicago. 1988)Google Scholar.

21. Drawings of craftsmen's tools spelled out the Solidarity masthead in its first years of publication. For later changes, see Kornbluh, ed., Rebel Voices; Zurier, Rebecca. Art for the Masses: A Radical Magazine and Its Graphics (Philadelphia. 1988);Google Scholar and Salerno, Salvatore. Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World (Albany, 1989)Google Scholar.

22. Pullman Car Works Standard 1 (January, March 1917); 2 (May, July, December 1917); Pullman News 7 (August 1928, January 1929).

23. Koopman, Henry R., Pullman: The City of Brick (Roseland, 1893);Google ScholarPetraitis, Paul W., “Henry Ralph Koopman II: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood Photographer,” Chicago History 7 (Fall 1978): 161–77; Chicago Public Library, Historic Pullman Collection 1.1–1.3. Pullman Research Group CollectionGoogle Scholar.

24. Chicago Public Library, Historic Pullman Collection 1.33; “Town of Pullman: Pullman Co. Album of Photographs.”

25. Chicago Public Library, Historic Pullman Collection 1.60–1.62; The Suburban; Chicago Daily Socialist; Labor Day Illustrated (Chicago, 1897)Google Scholar.

26. The following is based on an analysis of the Chicago Daily Socialist, Solidarity, and Industrial Pioneer.

27 Ebert, Justus, The Trial of a New Society (Cleveland, 1913), on the Lawrence strike;Google ScholarSmith, Walker C., The Everett Massacre: A History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry (Chicago, n.d.); Ralph Chaplin, The Centralia Conspiracy (n.p., n.d.).Google Scholar See also, Andrews, Ralph W., This Was Logging: Selected Photographs of Darius Kinsey (West Chester, 1984); and Industrial WorkerGoogle Scholar.

28. See “First Anniversary, In Memoriam Joe Hill, Murdered by the Capitalist Class Nov. 19 1915” (Chicago, 19 November, 1916). The portraits discussed here were collected by a Pullman worker and are in the author's possession.Google Scholar See Peterson, Larry, “The Intellectual World of the IWW: An American Worker's Library in the First Half of the Twentieth Century,” History Workshop 22 (Autumn 1986): 153–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Ebert, , Trial of a New Society, 235, 243, 252, 260, 264.Google Scholar

30. Compare the cover photograph used for Jack London, The Dream of Debs (Chicago, nd.), with Lucie-Smith and Dars. Work and Struggle, Plates III, 50, 51, 55, 60.Google Scholar

31. Taylor, , Satellite Cities, 28–67.Google Scholar

32. The following is based on an analysis of Steel Labor.

33. Cf. Faue, Elizabeth, Community of Suffering and Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915–1945 (Chapel Hill, 1991)Google Scholar.

34. Steel Labor, 24 February, 1944.

35. See Guimond, James, American Photography and the American Dream (Chapel Hill, 1991); Nye, Image Worlds; Stange, Symbols of Ideal LifeGoogle Scholar.

36. Naomi, and Rosenblum, Walter, “Camera Images of Labor – Past and Present,” in The Other America: Art and the Labour Movement in the United States, ed. Foner, Philip and Schultz, Reinhard (West Nyack, 1985).Google Scholar For a highly successful example, see Guy, and Carawan, Candie. Voices from the Mountains (Urbana, 1975)Google Scholar.

37. The following analysis is based on the family album of Charles Mitchell; Pullman materials collected by Mario Donati and preserved by his son Chester Donati; postcards of Pullman in the private collection of Harold T. Wolff; Chicago Public Library, Historic Pullman Collection; the Pullman News; and the author's personal collection. The workers discussed here were Scandinavian, English, and Italian and worked at Pullman as woodworkers, painters, blacksmiths, low-level office workers, and fire and security personnel between 1881 and 1957. See Pullman News 1 (July 1922); The Carbuilder 5 (September 1944); Pullman Standard Carworker, 9 January, 1948; Peterson, “Intellectual World of the IWW.”

38. The following is based on an analysis of the photographs; an interview with Leslie E. Peterson, a Pullman worker who became a photographer in the 1930s and 1940s; and Chicago Historical Society, Pullman Community Collection. See also Daniel, et al.. Official Images; Reid and Viskochil, eds., Chicago and Downstate, xvii.

39. See Koopman's photographs of the Elim Lutheran and Holy Rosary Churches, reprinted in Doty, Town of Pullman (1974 reprint); postcard in Harold T. Wolff collection.

40. See Andrews, , This Was Logging; The Mining Town of Morococha: Photographs by Sebastian Rodriguez and Fran Antman (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

41. Hirsch, Julia, Family Portraits: Content, Meaning, and Effect (New York, 1981)Google Scholar.

42. This analysis confirms conclusions drawn for other areas of ethnic and commercial culture by Lizabeth Cohen, “Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots: The Experience of Chicago Workers in the 1920s,” American Quarterly 41 (March 1989): 6–33.

43. For example, see “Town of Pullman: Pullman Co. Album of Photographs;” and Pullman Car Works Standard 2 (May, September 1917) and 4 (June 1919); Chicago Historical Society Pullman negative P23403#6; Pullman News 9 (July 1930).

44. Chicago Public Library, Historic Pullman Collection 1.62; Chaplin, , Centralia Conspiracy 32. 75, 76, 79; Daily Times (Chicago), 18 June, 1937 (these photographs were cut and saved by one Pullman worker).Google Scholar See also Kornbluh, , ed., Rebel Voices, 255.Google Scholar

45. Based on photographs in the author's personal collection; Leavitt, FredPullman: Portrait of a Landmark Community (Chicago 1981), 23.Google Scholar See also Reid, and Viskochil, , eds., Chicago and Downstate, 178.Google Scholar