The Homestead Strike

In 1893, the Rawsthorne Engraving and Printing Company published journalist Arthur Burgoyne’s complete history of the 1892 Homestead strike and the ensuing conflict between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Although popular at the time of publication, it fell out of print until the University of Pittsburgh Press revived it in the late 1970s. Burgoyne, one of Pittsburgh’s most skilled and sensitive journalists, offers an accurate, readable, and judiciously balanced history that gives crucial insight into a turbulent period in Pittsburgh’s history.

On July 6, 1892, three hundred armed Pinkerton agents arrived in Homestead, Pennsylvania to retake the Carnegie Steelworks from the company's striking workers. As the agents tried to leave their boats, shots rang out and a violent skirmish began. The confrontation at Homestead was a turning point in the history of American unionism, beginning a rapid process of decline for America’s steel unions that lasted until the Great Depression. Examining the strike’s origins, events, and legacy, The Homestead Strike illuminates the tense relationship between labor, capital, and government in the pivotal moment between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era. In a concise narrative, bolstered by statements from steelworkers, court testimony, and excerpts from Carnegie's writings, Paul Kahan introduces students to one of the most dramatic and influential episodes in the history of American labor.

Describes the events leading up to and occurring during the lockout and strike of steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, in 1892, and its impact upon American labor unions.

On July 6, 1892, violence erupted at the Carnegie Steel mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania, when striking employees and Pinkerton detectives hired to break the strike exchanged gunfire along the shore of the Monongahela River. The skirmish left some dozen dead, led to a congressional investigation, sparked a nearly successful assassination attempt on Carnegie Steel executive Henry Clay Frick, and altered the course of the American labor movement. The River Ran Red recreates the events of that summer using firsthand accounts and archival material, including excerpts from newspapers and magazines, reproductions of pen-and-ink sketches and photographs made on the scene, passages from the congressional investigation, and poems, songs, and sermons from across the country. Contributions by outstanding scholars provide the background for understanding the social and cultural aspects of the strike, as well as its violence and repercussions. Written to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the strike, The River Ran Red records and contextualizes public and personal reactions to one of the most important events in labor history, the reverberations of which are still felt today.

Homestead : A Complete History of the Struggle of July, 1892, between the Carnegie-Steel Company, Limited, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers The demand voiced by representative workingmen in the Pittsburgh district, not only on their own account but on that of their brethren the world over, for a correct and impartial history of the Homestead trouble, sufficiently explains the appearance of this volume. The importance of the theme requires no demonstration. Since labor first organized for its own protection it has passed through no period more prolific in soul-stirring events and significant developments than that extending from July to November, 1892, and including the lock-out at the Carnegie mills, the battle with 300 Pinkerton guards, the military occupation of Homestead, the trial of labor leaders on capital charges and the ultimate collapse of the Amalgamated lodges for lack of funds to continue the struggle against non-unionism. This was a conflict of far more than local interest. It was watched with anxiety by both friends and foes of organized labor on both sides of the Atlantic; it claimed the attention of leaders of thought in all departments of human activity; it stirred up the British House of Parliament and the United States Congress, agitated the newspaper press of both continents, became an issue in the election for President and is said to have contributed more largely to the defeat of Benjamin Harrison by Grover Cleveland than any other influence. The injection of partisan considerations into public discussion of the Homestead affair led naturally to a vast amount of misrepresentation, and even at this late day the causes and character of the struggle are widely misunderstood. It has been the mission of the author of this history to sift out the truth, to make clear the motives and methods of the disputants on both sides, and to recount in detail the events of the contest without sacrificing historic accuracy to romantic effect. Personal observations in the course of visits to the "seat of war" while hostilities were in progress, and subsequent conversations with the leaders has made the task a comparatively easy one. Little attempt is made to philosophize on the varying phases of the labor question as presented at Homestead. It is left largely to the reader to form his own deductions from the facts set forth and from the opinions of recognized authorities, not forgetting Mr. Carnegie himself, which are liberally cited. That through the perusal of "Homestead" new light may be borne in upon some of the many who persist in regarding the American workingman as a mere piece of mechanism, deservedly at the mercy of his employer, is the earnest hope of

Two founding fathers of American industry. One desire to dominate business at any price. “Masterful . . . Standiford has a way of making the 1890s resonate with a twenty-first-century audience.”—USA Today “The narrative is as absorbing as that of any good novel—and as difficult to put down.”—Miami Herald The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the riveting story of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers’ strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, Meet You in Hell captures the majesty and danger of steel manufacturing, the rough-and-tumble of the business world, and the fraught relationship between “the world’s richest man” and the ruthless coke magnate to whom he entrusted his companies. The result is an extraordinary work of popular history. Praise for Meet You in Hell “To the list of the signal relationships of American history . . . we can add one more: Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick . . . The tale is deftly set out by Les Standiford.”—Wall Street Journal “Standiford tells the story with the skills of a novelist . . . a colloquial style that is mindful of William Manchester’s great The Glory and the Dream.”—Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “A muscular, enthralling read that takes you back to a time when two titans of industry clashed in a battle of wills and egos that had seismic ramifications not only for themselves but for anyone living in the United States, then and now.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River