Albert Benton Pullman: Railroad Pioneer and American Entrepreneur

This talk by Simon Cordery details the life of an unjustly neglected Gilded Age figure. Older brother of the notorious George Pullman, Albert Pullman made several crucial but forgotten contributions to the success of Pullman’s Palace Car Company and engaged in an erratic, fascinating investment career. He personified the stratum of everyday entrepreneurs whose persistent, frantic, sometimes fraudulent, and often unproductive investments undergirded economic activity. Albert Pullman’s frequently calamitous investments illustrate the precarious nature of Gilded Age capitalism beyond the well-known Robber Barons.