However, as a further means of making money, he rented and sold homes and land in the village to non-employees. There, across the river from Manhattan, William Steinway also established a village with housing for his workers, which gave him some control, as he could evict anyone who went on strike. Eager to get their employees away from the anarchists and socialists who were “continually breeding discontent among our workmen and inciting them to strike,” according to William Steinway, one of Henry’s sons, the family constructed a complex, including a foundry and sawmill, on 400 acres in the lightly populated Astoria section of Queens, New York. By 1870, the thriving Steinway & Sons needed more space, but the company’s success had also made it a target of labor agitators. In 1853, German immigrant Henry Steinway founded a piano-making business bearing his name in lower Manhattan. Steinway Village, New York: An escape from labor organizers However, after the chocolate king died in 1945, Hershey survived, unlike other company towns, and chocolate is still made there today. Although the strike was short-lived, it marred the community’s idyllic image. In 1937, Hershey chocolate factory workers organized the company’s first labor union and went on strike. Efforts were made by Hershey and his executives to police employees’ behavior when they were off the clock, and company managers were accused by some workers of showing favoritism when it came to wages and hiring practices. During the Great Depression, he launched a building campaign that kept hundreds of people employed and resulted in the addition of a large hotel, sports arena and other public structures to his model town.ĭespite Hershey’s altruism and his chocolate-scented community’s many amenities, life in “the sweetest place on Earth” wasn’t entirely sweet. In 1909, Hershey, who was childless and had a limited formal education, established a local boarding school for orphaned boys. With streets named Chocolate and Cocoa avenues, the new town featured a wide variety of affordable, modern homes that workers could rent or own, a trolley system, public schools, social clubs, an amusement park and zoo. Due to the remote location of the factory, Hershey also constructed a town for his employees, intending it as an industrial utopia that reflected his progressive beliefs. He built a factory complex near his birthplace in rural Pennsylvania, in part because the area’s dairy farms offered access to an ample supply of milk. In 1900, Milton Hershey sold the successful caramel candy business he’d founded in order to become a pioneer in the mass production of milk chocolate. Hershey, Pennsylvania: A chocolate king’s industrial utopia Soon afterward, Pullman was slated for demolition however, it eluded that fate after residents protested and survive today. The neighborhood, which was annexed to Chicago in 1889, went into a slow decline and the factory closed in 1957. to sell all its non-industrial property, allowing workers to buy their homes. The following year, the Illinois Supreme Court ordered the Pullman Co. When the railway car magnate died in 1897, his coffin was buried under layers of concrete and steel so no one could desecrate his body. In response to an economic downturn in 1894, Pullman cut jobs and wages while refusing to reduce rents, sparking a violent workers’ strike that ended only after federal troops were sent in. Saloons and town meetings were banned and Pullman even had the final say on which books the library stocked and what performances the theater put on. Workers, allowed only to rent their homes, could be evicted on short notice and faced random inspections by officials. The community won national accolades and by 1893 had 12,000 residents however, some who lived there chafed under Pullman’s iron rule. Residences had yards, indoor plumbing, gas and daily trash removal, rare amenities for industrial workers of that era. The town featured more than 1,000 homes, public buildings and parks. He intended for his planned community to help prevent labor unrest, attract a skilled workforce and increase employee productivity by providing a clean, orderly environment away from the vice-filled big city. In 1884, George Pullman completed the construction of a new manufacturing complex and town on 4,000 acres of land south of Chicago for the employees of his flourishing Pullman Palace Car Co., founded in 1867 to build luxury railroad sleeping cars. Pullman, Illinois: An ambitious social experiment that failed
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |