Homestead+Strike

The Carnegie Steel Company:
Andrew Carnegie was the founder and owner of the Carnegie Steel Company, which first was established in 1883. After three years of working alongside Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, their contract was soon to expire. While Carnegie was away in Europe, his partner, Henry Clay Frick, decided it would be a good time to cut the workers’ wages. He argued that the increased efficiency had inflated the salaries, and unskilled workers could be hired cheaper. Using European immigrants rather than skilled workers, would amount to paying $1.70 for a 12-hour day compared to $4-7.60 in an 8-hour day.

=The Company's Stance:=

== Henry Clay Flick and Andrew Carnegie, the two head operators of the Homestead mills in Homestead, Pennsylvania, saw an opportunity to crush the unions and re-assert their authority over the laborers by exploiting the recent mechanical advances toward steel production. Since acquiring these of production, such as open-hearth furnaces, electricity, and the Bessemer converter (which removes impurities from the steel by mean by oxidizing the steel) production more efficient, they figured that this increased efficiency caused the wages of the worker to become inflated. To compensate for this, they concluded that lowering the wages of the worker would encourage them to work harder and produce more steel, since their salary was linear to the amount of product they could produce. ==

=The Laborers' Stance:=

== The workers at the Carnegie mills felt that the cost to produce the steel was well below the standard for the industry, mostly due to the fact that they cooperated in the recent mechanization of the plants. Therefore, they found the whole situation to be rather demeaning and unfair towards them. They felt they could rule and govern the mills themselves, seeing as the head operators (Carnegie and Flick) were unresponsive to their wishes, and if they addressed themselves, the workers would be more content and more productive without them. With that in mind, the workers attempted to establish unions all over the company grounds, the likes of which were shut down by Carnegie and Flick, as they thought there meetings would corrupt the steady flow of production and prove to be a distraction, not to mention a threat to their own power of running the mills. ==

** The Company on Unions: **
As long as there was no violence involved, Andrew Carnegie believed in unions and accepted his employees’ right to strike. However, this strike took place while he was in Europe, and his partner who was left in charge, Henry Clay Flick, was against unions. The workers on the other hand, strongly believed in their right to unionize and gather. One of their songs they sang during the strike states, “Why workingmen resort to arms to get their proper pay. And why our labor unions they must not be recognized.” This clearly shows the lack of support and recognition they had been getting from their employers to come together and jointly discuss their problems.



Frick, knowing the workers would be outraged at the thought of receiving a lower pay, having their union destroyed, or losing their job all together, shut down the plant. These 3,600-800 men who lost their jobs said if that happened, they would strike, and that’s what they did. The men wanted higher wages for their work, and had most of the town behind them. During these strikes, many sang songs and wrote poems about how they felt they were being treated. One called ‘Song of a Strike’ states, “They want to lower our wages, we think it is not right.” 

=The Strike Unfolds:=

== Soon, Frick brought up 300 private soldiers, known as the Pinkertons, to guard and protect his factory. But, the strike picked up its pace on July 6, 1892, when workers took an attack on the plant. The brutal fight ensued, and during the battle, the lives of 3 Pinkertons and 7 strikers were lost. Throughout the battle, the workers would not give in to the Pinkerton’s surrender, and finally ended up winning the battle. This though, had little effect on the outcome of the strike. == == Although the workers won against the Pinkertons, because Frick called in all 8,500 members of the National Guard, they lost their fight in the end. The National Guard took charge of the plant, and brought in other workers called, “scabs.” The old workers were evicted from their homes and unions were officially dismantled from the factory. Because Henry Frick was seriously injured during an assassination attempt, the rest of the community now sided with The Carnegie Steel Company because they were against the violence the workers used. ==

The Changes:
The effects of the Homestead Strike of 1892 did not benefit the workers at all; after surrendering from their attack, the workers lost all that they had been fighting for. When the plant reopened, it was filled with African Americans and Eastern European immigrants who would be paid a lot less to work. These workers now worked 6 days a week for 12 hours, and also a 24 hour day, followed by a day off every other week.

= Back To Work: = After the strike ended non-union workers resumed work at the mill. While union leaders got blacklisted from every other steel mill in the country. Also no more unions were formed in the steel industry until 40 years after the Homestead Strike.

Priamary Sources:
"The Homestead Strike": //The Homestead Strike Songster //  (New York: n.d.). Reprinted in Philip S. Foner, //American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century //  (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 243.

“Song of a Strike”: George Swetnam, “Song of a Strike,” (1892). Reprinted in Linda Schneider, “The Citizen Striker: Workers' ideology in the Homestead​ Strike of 1892,” <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Labor History // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> 23 (Winter 1982): 60.

<span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Interview of Frick, Pittsburgh //Post,// 8 July 1892. Reprinted in House Report 2447, 52nd Congress, 2nd Session: //Employment of Pinkerton Detectives// (Washington, D.C.: 1892). http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5349/ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mintz, S. Industrialization and the Working Class. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Digital History // <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">. (2007). [|http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?][|HHID=229].

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Secondary Sources:
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Homestead Act of 1892,” ABC-Clio. [[],]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">America: Pathway to the Present // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (Pearson Education Inc., 2007), 482.

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