Robert Todd Lincoln

[79ttocs]

The Pullman Palace Sleeping Car Company and Robert Lincoln's involvement there is a fascinating story that has never been fully researched. Since my main background is railroad history, I've tried to scratch at Pullman and Lincoln. Pullman was a very good PR man and an average business man. His town of Pullman, Illinois and the Pullman Strike of 1894 are well worth the efforts of any serious historian, as is the life of Eugene Victor Debbs, his creation of the American Railway Union, to which most Pullman shop employees took up membership and how they nearly brought America to the brink of anarchy. Robert Lincoln's job, at least from the surface, was to mop up George Pullman's messes and keep the Company focused, which was especially difficult after 1893 and the on-set of the Depression. Just look in any July 1894 newspaper for details of the Chicago strike. Of course it was the continued anger towards George Pullman after his death and the attempts to dig his body up and toss it into Lake Michigan that prompted Robert Lincoln to have him reburied deep with his coffin being encased in reinforced concrete at a depth reported at 27 feet. This in turn led to Robert's father, Abraham, at the final burial of 1901, being buried in a similar manner at 10 feet, his coffin being encased in reinforced concrete

Scott Trostel