80 FR 10313 - Establishment of the Pullman National Monument
Executive Office of the President
Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 37 (February 25, 2015)
Page Range
10313-10319
FR Document
2015-04090
Federal Register, Volume 80 Issue 37 (Wednesday, February 25, 2015)
[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 37 (Wednesday, February 25, 2015)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 10313-10319]
From the Federal Register Online [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-04090]
[[Page 10313]]
Vol. 80
Wednesday,
No. 37
February 25, 2015
Part V
The President
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Proclamation 9233--Establishment of the Pullman National Monument
Presidential Determination No. 2015-04 of February 20, 2015--
Determination and Waiver Pursuant to Section 1209 of the Carl Levin and
Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2015 Regarding the Provision of Assistance to Appropriately Vetted
Elements of the Syrian Opposition
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 80 , No. 37 / Wednesday, February 25, 2015 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 10315]]
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
[[Page 10316]]
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 well-preserved
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
[[Page 10317]]
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
[[Page 10318]]
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 thirty-ninth.
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3295-F5-P
[[Page 10319]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD25FE15.018
[FR Doc. 2015-04090
Filed 2-24-15; 11:15 a.m.]
Billing code 4310-10-C