History

My Great Grandfather...

"I remember fondly the Pullman Foundation
and the scholarship they gave me for four years - ah so many years ago...Like a small ripple your generosity has spread 4 times over. I guess the old saying 'educate a woman and you educate a family' is true in my case..."
-Joan
Class of 1969

"George M. Pullman, my great grandfather, was the inventor of the railroad sleeping car and founder of the Pullman Palace Car Company," said the late Phillip Lowden Miller, president emeritus of the educational foundation that still carries his great grandfather's legacy. George Mortimer Pullman's social, political, and economic endeavors form a major chapter in the history of the City of Chicago, and in fact, in the Industrial Revolution of the United States.

Standing among Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Mellon as one of the top inventors and business barons of his day, Pullman was known for technological accomplishments beyond the railroad car. For instance, he once devised a way to actually raise the skyscrapers of the city so that engineers could reinforce the buildings' foundations as the marsh land below threatened to give way underneath.

During the 1880's, Pullman built and developed the town of Pullman, south of Chicago city limits, specifically to house his Pullman Car Works employees and their families. As a type of planned community, the town of Pullman also contained an elementary school, a library, a church, a theater and a hotel. All parts of the town--including housing--were company owned; rent and expenses were automatically deducted from workers' pay. The town's history, therefore, comes complete with stories of strike and protest, accomplishment and growth. The town remains today as the Pullman Historic District under the care of the Historic Pullman Foundation.

Pullman Tech...
In addition to the lasting community established by George M. Pullman, upon his death in 1897, he bequeathed the sum of $1,200,000 to provide for the building and endowment of a "free school of manual training for the benefit of the children of persons living or employed at Pullman." An additional bequest was made by Mrs. Pullman, and the Pullman Free School of Manual Training, located at 250 E. 111th Street, opened its doors in September, 1915. The first year class welcomed 106 boys and girls. Although the town of Pullman had by this time become part of the city of Chicago, the school successfully fulfilled the intentions of its founder by serving the children of employees of the Pullman car works and the Pullman-Roseland communities. It was widely recognized at the time for excellence in vocational instruction and effective training of its students, all of whom were concurrently enrolled in core academic subjects such as English, math, and science.

After 35 years, however, the endowment that supported "Pullman Tech," as it was called, could no longer sustain the rising costs of the school's operation as it grew to a student enrollment of 600. By Pullman's will, the school was prohibited from charging tuition. Also, by this time vocational training had increasingly become part of the offerings of the Chicago public school system. In the late 1940's, after careful consideration of the options, the Board decided that the only practicable means of carrying out Pullman's intention was to close the school and create an educational foundation. Such a step required approval by the Superior Court of Cook County, which granted the request.

The Pullman Free School building, however, has since remained in almost constant operation as a high school, continuing to serve the Pullman and Roseland communities. Chartered in 1951, Mendel Catholic High School (an all-male institution named in 1979 as one of the top ten schools in the U.S.) was housed in the original building for 37 years, making way for a co-ed Catholic school in the 1980's. After millions of dollars in renovations, the historic Pullman Tech building is now the home of Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep High School, one of the Chicago Public Schools, named in honor of Illinois' Poet Laureate.

The Foundation...
After the closing of the Pullman Free School of Manual Training, the George M. Pullman Educational Foundation was chartered in June, 1949, under the laws of the state of Illinois as a not-for-profit corporation:

To establish, manage and maintain an educational foundation; to furnish aid by awards, scholarships and similar methods to qualified applicants in obtaining education and training for any vocation on any educational level; to assist by grants or gifts any other educational purpose, research or investigation in the field of education; to establish or maintain a school of manual training at Pullman, Illinois or in lieu thereof, to assist by gifts of funds, as aforesaid, children of persons living or employed at Pullman in obtaining training and education in the manual arts and trades and other education.

The Foundation continued to operate the school for one transition year while beginning a scholarship program for economically disadvantaged students to pursue undergraduate work at accredited colleges and universities. Some twenty years later, upon the recommendation of a special committee of the Board of Directors, the Foundation expanded its scholarship program to include high school graduates enrolled in approved, non-degree technical or vocational training schools (phased out in the mid 1990s).

Scholarships...
For over 60 years, the Pullman Educational Foundation has made a crucial impact on the lives of Cook County students wishing to further their education. Due to scholarships that have totaled over $26 million as of 2009, almost 11,000 families have been able to see their children succeed in college. In the early years, the Foundation’s award was the largest single source of gift support available to its recipients, and often the difference between a student being able to attend college or not. With the growth of federal, state, and collegiate gift aid (and the increases in college costs), the Pullman Scholarship has become a smaller proportion of most recipients’ gift aid, even as the average Pullman Scholarship steadily increased (from $333 in 1950, to $3,449 in 2010). Today, the scholarship allows a reduced workload and debt burden for recipients.

Throughout the Foundation’s history, Pullman Scholarships have represented high academic and personal achievement by its recipients.

Visionaries...
For the last decade , the Foundation's funds have been supplemented by donations from past recipients. Pullman's vision to provide educational opportunities for students has continued through the work of the Foundation's Board of Directors, executive directors, and staff. Florence Lowden Miller, granddaughter of George M. Pullman, served more than 50 years as director and president of the Pullman Educational Foundation (and its predecessor, the Pullman Free School of Manual Training), and was then succeeded by her son, Phillip Lowden Miller, who served as president himself for 31 years until 2009. The Board of Directors, comprised over the years of prominent Chicago business and civic leaders including lawyers, university deans, professors, government officials, and religious leaders, has guided the work of the Pullman Educational Foundation as it continues to provide necessary financial assistance and counseling to Chicago-area students and their families. Three current Board members are former Pullman Scholars themselves.

The executive directors and staff of the Pullman Foundation have ensured continuation of the Foundation's efforts to make college possible and affordable for its scholarship recipients. In addition to the Pullman Scholarship Program, the Foundation launched a demonstration project called Building Your Future (BYF). Starting in September 1993, the program enrolled 75 freshmen in each of two consecutive classes at Chicago's Fenger High School. During their four years in high school, full-time on-site Pullman staff counselors provided BYF students with individual and group career counseling, academic skills enhancement, exposure to the post-high school academic and professional world, and preparation for the college application process, including campus visits and intensive workshops.

BYF also helped students and their parents identify and apply for financial assistance and then went the extra step -- providing last-dollar grants from the Pullman Foundation's Florence Lowden Miller Award program. Under the current leadership of Sandra Blau, Executive Director since 1998, the Foundation has collaborated with other organizations in the Chicago area such as the Illinois College Access Network, the Saturday Scholars program, and the Illinois Education Foundation, which has allowed the Pullman Foundation to provide awards to many more students in need of financial aid.

The College Landscape...
The recent transition to a knowledge-based economy in the U.S. has increased the demand for college educated workers, and the returns to those workers are greater now than ever before in the history of this country. Workers with a bachelor's degree earn considerably more than workers with only a high school diploma. However, students from low- and moderate-income families are caught between rising college costs and a critical shortfall in student financial aid, which make their dreams of a college education, higher paying jobs, and upward mobility increasingly elusive.

As the gap between college costs, family income, and financial aid widens, the George M. Pullman Educational Foundation is prepared to re-assess and re-focus its programs to fulfill its commitment to assisting students in need as they pursue their college and career goals. Continuing the legacy of the Pullman Free School of Manual Training - and Pullman's desire to provide for the educational needs of disadvantaged students - this foundation continually responds to the current financial horizon, helping to lessen the college financial burden for Chicago-area students.

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Pullman Student Profile

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