The Story of Two Factory Towns in the 1880’s :

by StephenColet - Center Street Elementary - El Segundo Unified

The Home Life of Workers

In the aftermath of the 1877 Railroad Strike, George M. Pullman looked to architect a company town that would be productive and also socially stable. Toward this goal, in 1881, the Pullman village was established in Chicago, Illinois. Concurrently, in 1881 and 1882, James Withers Sloss, a northern Alabama planter and investor, built the furnaces that became known as the “City Furnaces” and subsequently established a company town that housed the workers of the Sloss furnaces. Both Pullman and Sloss were driven by economic interests and both men strongly pushed forward the “gospel of industrialism.” This notion, a combination of moral certitude and company profit motivation, meant that the residents of Pullman village and the fifty-acre Sloss site were bound to a labor environment that went far beyond the hours of physical work but furthermore spoke to the domestic life, racial relations, and labor concerns of these manufactured communities.