The Great Philanthropists

From the February issue of Chicago magazine, among articles on 25 families who played a major role in the city's emergence as a leading metropolis:

"The McCormick family: Chicago was a town of fewer than 17,000 people in 1847 when a Virnia inventor named Cyrus McCormick decided it made the ideal place to manufacture and distribute his breakthrough invention, a mechanical grain reaper that enabled one man to do the work of five. McCormick and two of his brothers, Leander and William, went on to build the booming company that would become International Harvester and later Navistar International, now based in west-suburban Warrenville."

and

"The Pullman Family: George Mortimer Pullman's luxurious sleeping cars made long-distance train travel comfortable and turned him into a rich man. In the l880s, Pullman built a picturesque town (named after himself), later incorporated into the city, where his employees could work in his factory, live in high-quality houses they rented from him, shop in his stores, and send their children to the schools he built. But Pullman's record as a friend of the working stiff was mixed. The financial panic of 1893 prompted him to cut his workers' wages by 20 to 25 percent (while keeping rents unchanged), touching off the infamous and deadly Pullman Strike (1894). After his death in 1897, custodians of Graceland Cemetery enclosed his coffin in tons of concrete to keep people from desecrating his grave."

I like that line, "(his) record . . . was mixed." MIXED? Employees worked in his factories, paid him rent, shopped in his stores, and sent their children to his schools.

If they were LUCKY!

Can't imagine why they'd want to desecrate the grave of someone who'd done so much for Chicago.