George Mortimer Pullman (1831-1897) was an American industrial innovator who developed the railroad sleeping car and built a big business with it. He was one of the last industrialists to operate a company town.

George Pullman was born on March 3, 1831, in Brocton, New York, but his parents soon moved to Portland, New York. His upbringing in the Universalist Church greatly affected his later philosophy of labor. His formal education ended at the age of 14, and in 1845 he started work in a general store. After his father died, Pullman agreed to finish his father's contracts to move some homes in the path of an Erie Canal widening. Upon completion of that work in 1855 he moved to Chicago, where he entered the business of raising buildings onto higher foundations to avoid flooding because much of Chicago's land area was only a few feet above the level of Lake Michigan.

The...