On July 5, 1892, shortly after midnight, tugboats pulling barges on the Monongahela River were sighted by the strikers on shore. The barges were carrying several hundred Pinkerton's detectives armed with Winchester repeating rifles--a private army in the employ of the steel company. Within an hour, strikers on horseback rode through the streets of Homestead giving the alarm. Several thousand armed strikers and sympathizers, including women and teen-age children, rose from interrupted sleep and gathered at the riverbank in Homestead.
A rowdy threatening crowd of strikers greeted the Pinkertons with a warning that they should not step foot on shore--but they did. Gunfire erupted. Under a barrage of gunfire, the Pinkerton detectives soon retreated back to their barges. Gunfire was exchanged over 12 hours. Strikers set a freight train car on fire and rolled it to the landing area near the barges. Lighted torches and dynamite were thrown at the barges. Strikers pumped oil into the river and set the oil on fire.
By the afternoon of July 6, the Pinkertons had surrendered. Three detectives and nine workers were dead. Afterward, the striking steel-workers celebrated a premature victory.
The governor of Pennsylvania ordered state militia to restore order in Homestead. Militia took over the Carnegie-Frick steel mills and then escorted strikebreakers--called "scabs" by union members--in and out of the plant in sealed railroad cars. The strikers ran out of money and hope in four months and most returned to work. It was a grim Christmas.
Local and state authorities charged strike leaders with murder. As many as 160 other striking workers were charged with lesser crimes. The strike committee was arrested and charged with treason.
When these striking workers were tried in court, sympathetic juries would not convict them. The strike leaders were blacklisted from the industry. Carnegie crushed the union movement in Homestead and greatly reduced union activity in the steel mills in the Pittsburgh area.
On July 23, 1892, a New York native, Alexander Berkman, who had no connection with steel or the union, tried to assassinate Henry Frick at his company office. Berkman shot and stabbed Frick. Security arrested Berkman. Frick survived and recovered and Berkman was tried for attempted murder. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
The union had won two major strikes in 1882 and 1889. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers had obtained over 50 pages of work-rules at the mills, stopped "yellow dog" contracts, increased union membership, and banked a strike fund for future use. The contract was terminated in 1892.
Following the strike of 1892, Carnegie's reputation as a benevolent employer was lost forever.
In the year of the Homestead strike, organized labor had declared a general strike in New Orleans, coal miners went on strike in Tennessee, railroad switch-men struck in Buffalo, and copper miners struck in Idaho. The American economy was in recession. In Homestead, General Manager Henry Frick was determined to compensate for lower steel prices at his mills by imposing lower wages on workers. He also intended to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, which he did.
Carnegie, who was on vacation in Scotland at the time of the strike, expressed his regret over the outcome. He tried to redeem himself six years later, when he returned to Homestead and dedicated a new library building, a concert hall, a swimming pool, bowling alleys and a gymnasium for the use of the public.
"Nothing...in all my life, before or since, wounded me so deeply," Carnegie wrote in his autobiography. "No pangs remain of any wound received in my business career save that of Homestead."
Editor's note: This post was intended for Labor Day. We regret the delay. A key contributor for the Cortland Contrarian took an extended holiday in New York City.
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