Homestead Strike

 Homestead Strike

A confrontation between workers and the administration of the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, at Homestead, Pennsylvania, started in June of 1892 and lasted for five months. The strike was organized and led by members of Amalgamated Association, a powerful trade union of steel workers. About 3,800 workingmen took part in it. Neither side of the conflict wanted to compromise. The struggle was intense, cruel, and often bloody. Seven strikers died during a firefight with the Pinkerton detectives. Henry Frick, a chairman of the corporation, was wounded during an assassination attempt. What caused the strike?

To answer the question first of all we should examine the working and living conditions of the Homestead workers. The information about the subject is quite controversial. There is no doubt that the work at a steel mill at that time was harsh and dangerous. A Carnegie’s steelworker compared his job with “working aside of hell ahead of time”(Wolff, L., Lockout, p.36). Here is a description of the Homestead mill by a visitor. “Everywhere in the enormous sheds were pits gaping like the mouth of hell, and ovens emitting a terrible degree of heat, with grimy men filling and lining them. One man jumps down, works desperately for a few minutes, and is then pulled up exhausted. Another immediately takes his place; there is no hesitation” (Wolff, 36). Some workers worked in the temperature near 128 degrees (53 degrees by Celsius). The heater helpers “pulled out billet after billet and tossed them to the rougher. Feverishly he shoved them into the roller. When he turned around another billet was waiting…Since a false step could mean death, this job was never given to an older man…The work in the rolling, blooming, and plate mills was cooler but equally” difficult. The workers’ clothes “were covered with minuscule, shiny grains of steel...They often complained of respiratory problems” (Wolff, 36-37).

“The men worked every day of the year, except Christmas and July 4”. A majority of the workers worked twelve hours a day, though there were eight and ten hour shifts. Every two weeks there was the “turn”, when worker had to work for twenty-four hours. The following day, the men were given a day off (Wolff, 32).

There were no meal breaks. “Dirty-handed, the men ate fruits and leftovers from their lunch pails whenever they had a chance. Before leaving work, for lack of bathing facilities, they washed their arms and shoulders in a “bosh”, a trough of water in which tools were placed to cool off” (Wolff, 37).

The work was extremely dangerous. During only one month there were sixty-five accidents at the Homestead factory, seven of which were lethal. About half of the injuries were “sprained ankles, smashed feet, and lacerated hands”. “The other half added up thus: ten head wounds, three broken arms or legs, two amputated arms, four eye injuries, eight internal injuries, and one case of paralysis”. “An engineer said that he had lost count of the men whose hands were smashed during hook-ons”. Recent immigrants were especially vulnerable. “Unacquainted with the machinery, and with an exasperated boss shouting unintelligible orders, the Slav [or Hungarian] workman was as likely to run into danger than out of it… In a single plant, during a span of twelve years, 3,273 immigrants were killed or injured” (Wolff, 34-35, 37, 242).

We should remember, however, that some of the Carnegie’s workers were paid “extraordinary wages”. It is impossible to prove or disapprove it now, but there were anecdotes about “rollers and heaters coming to the plant in Prince Albert coats wearing top heads to collect their wages”. In 1892, a New York Times’ reporter mentioned in his article a boss roller making about $ 10,000 a year (New York Times). Of course we do not know how reliable the journalist's information was, but on average, in May of 1892, a roller earned $ 11.84 daily; a heater - $8.16; a heater’s helper – 5.80; a tableman - $ 7.75; a shearman – $ 9.49 (Wolff, 37, 234). According to Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, in 1897, a pound of tea cost between twelve and seventy five cents (8); coffee – between 5 cents and one dollar (9); boneless ham – 10 cents (13); rice – between 5-6 cents (16). A weekly room rent was about two dollars (Wolff, 31). A good house cost around $ 5,000 (New York Times).

Numbers mentioned above are wages of skilled workers. Day laborers, most of whom were hardly understanding English immigrants, earned on average $ 9.80 a week (Wolff, 38). At first glance the payment was miserable. But “most immigrants…were single men, anxious to work for a few years, then to return permanently to their homelands with several hundred dollars saved. Such a sum amounted to a fortune in the Balkans… In about five years, almost a third of those who stayed [in the country] held semiskilled jobs”. Eventually, some of the immigrants “moved into well-paid, skilled categories” (Wolff, 241).

As a representative of the British Iron and Steel Institute said about the Carnegie’s workers,: The men, I dare say, [were] paid well, [but] they were … selling their lives” (Wolff, 36).

The strike was initiated buy the Amalgamated men. The Homestead’s branch of Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel workers consisted of about four hundred high skilled employees: the elite of the Carnegie’s mill. “Women, Negroes, and the unskilled seldom gained admission” to the Union. The union members were an elite and often unpopular circle among the work force. The men “high wages did not further their popularity”. These people had never tried to accomplish something for the non-unionists.

The Amalgamated Association was the strongest branch of American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.), a trade union that had a quarter of million members in 1892. The A.F. of L. was “efficiently organized”, and “it was a menace to profits because of its insistence on shorter hours [and] higher pay. And the A.F. of L. executive board was “ready, if not anxious to strike”. “In steel plants throughout America its members grew more pugnacious, aggressive, and self-confident, and “Amalgamated men considered themselves unbeatable in any labor conflict” (40,80). “Steel companies feared the mighty Amalgamated” (42). The union leaders in Homestead were three young men: Hugh O’Donnel, William Roberts, and Hugh Ross.

A chairman of the company then was Henry Frick: a most efficient manager. When Frick entered the company in 1888, “profits and steel tonnage that year had been $ 1,941,555 and 332’111 respectively. When he left it years later, the corresponding figures were 40,000,000 and 3,000,000” (24). Frick was respected by his colleagues including Carnegie, but was hated by the workers or “hands”, how he usually called them. The man had his own method of dealing with strike. “He crashed it with force and made no concessions”. “Unions should not exist”, he stated frequently. There were no doubts that “a showdown between the Amalgamated and Frick was due as soon as three-year union-management contract approached its expiration” (39).

The contract was to expire on June 30 of 1892. A meeting between representatives of the union and administration took place in February of that year (73). A union introduced a new variant of the contract. The unionists asked for insignificant pay raise. Porter handed the workers Frick’s counteroffer. According to this plan the “take-home pay” of the workers would be reduced by eighteen percent. Also, the contract’s expiration day would be changed from June 30 to December 31, “the worst time of the year for a strike or layoff”. The reduction of the wages would affect “the 32-inch slabbing mill, the 119-inch plate mill, and the open-hearth furnaces – those very departments which employed practically all…Amalgamated men”. “3, 500 men were not affected by the new scale” (78). At the same time, a few people working “elsewhere in the plant would be raised”. The union refused to sign the document (74).

There were three more meetings between March and June 31 that accomplished nothing: “confusion, bias, and … double talk reigned in all areas of the argument” (78). The union did not want the strike. On March 2^nd, Roberts said Porter, “You can tell your people [that] we are willing to make any reductions where they can show any reductions are necessary” (80). “We want to settle it without trouble; do not want a strike” (80). The workers vainly tried to reach Carnegie who was in Europe.

On May 29, the union committee was called again. In an official letter Frick demanded the union to accept his conditions by June 24. “If not”, he wrote, “[the union members] would be dealt with individually...The challenge to Amalgamated could not have been more blunt; it could surrender, it could disband, or it could strike… The anti-union sentiments of Carnegie’s officials became clear” (81-82).

Both sides began their preparations to the fight. The union organized an Advisory Committee. Hugh O’Donnell was pointed a chairman. According to the Frick’s order, a huge fence was constructed around the works. It was a dozen feet high, and had strands of barbed wire on the top. Several hundred “holes, three inches in diameter, were bored into the fence at about the height if the man’s shoulder” (85). Also, he had negotiations with Robert Pinkerton about hiring “a large number of guards”. They were hired for “five dollars per head per day” (84).

On June 28, without warning, layoffs began. That night “effigies of Frick and Porter were hung from a telegraph pole within the works”. The Advisory Committee passed a resolution “demanding that all non-union employees refuse to return to work July 1” (89). The resolution was voted for on the meeting of about 3,000 workers. O’Donnell explained “that the decision would be binding on all, regardless of union affiliation (90). It was passed overwhelmingly. Meanwhile, firing continued, and on July 2, “the last several hundred men were dismissed” (90). Mr. Frick had been waiting for the “Pinkertons” arrival. He planned to resume the work on July 6 (86).

“By July 4 all executive functions of the [borough of] Homestead were performed by Advisory Committee. The strikers knew that the Pinkertons were coming, and were ready to meet detectives. The workers were organized on a truly military base. Four thousand men were divided into three divisions. Division commanders received their orders from an Advisory Committee. The brigade composed of eight hundred Hungarians and Slavs was in reserve. The people were under command of two Hungarian workers and two interpreters (90). Each division commander had at his assistance eight captains. Each division was supposed to watch the factory and town eight hours a day. “Captains will have personal charge of the most important posts, i.e., the river front, the water gates and pumps, the railway station, and the main gates of the plant” (90). To patrol the river, the strikers used a small paddle steamer, the Edna. “To guard further along the river, patrols walked back and forth along the shore line” (92). “Atop the Electric Light Works in Homestead proper the strikers placed a steam whistle. By the number of blasts it emitted the men could ascertain where to assemble to meet the enemy” (92). Every road to the town was blockaded and nobody was allowed to enter without satisfactory explanation. “The exact number of armed strikers will never be known”, but several hundred of them had different kinds of weapons dating back to the Civil War (108). Pistols and revolvers were the most common. The workers were determined to keep the Pinkertons and strikebreakers out of the mills.

The force of 316 Pinkerton detectives was heading to Homestead. One group of them was moving to Homestead from New York and another from Chicago. Most of those men were just hired. They were described as “mostly unemployed, or drifters, a few college lads trying to earn … money between semesters, some hoodlums and out-and-out criminals on the run” (101). When they crossed the Pennsylvanian border by train, nobody was armed. Unlabeled crates with their weapons were in the last car; armed groups of people were prohibited from crossing the state border. Their destination was Bevellue, a town “five miles down the river from Pittsburgh”. There men saw two barges: the Iron Mountain and the Monongahela. Before boarding them, the men were given their Pinkerton uniforms: slouch hats, blouses with metal buttons, and dark blue trousers with lighter stripes.

The barges were tugged by two small steamers: the Little Bill and the Tide. At one of the barges was superintendent Porter, who had joined the Pinkertons in Bevellue. He had already had a gun in his holster. As the vessels approached the Smithfield bridge in downtown Pittsburgh, they were spotted by a striker watcher. “Watch the river. Steamer with barges left here”, he wired to Advisory Committee headquarters in a few minutes.

Off Glenwood, “the last bend of the [river] before Homestead, one of the steamers broke down. The Little Bill tagged both barges towards the Homestead factory. Approximately, at that time, the steam whistle at the Electric Light Works, alerted the town. It was about 4 a. m. “Thousands of men, women, and children began to get dressed… Within minutes the streets were a surging mass of yelling, cursing, laughing people” (106). When the barges were about a mile from the factory, the Edna “emitted a series of piercing blasts. They were answered by every steam whistle in Homestead and the crackle of fire crackers” (106). When the steamer and her barges run closer to the shore they came under a fire for the first time. Nobody was hurt. All the rifles and revolvers were distributed among the Pinkertons. Each man was given fifty rounds of ammunition. At that point, Nordrum, the Pinkertons’ commander demanded colonel Gray, a county sheriff’s chief deputy, to deputize the Pinkertons to give them authority. The colonel rejected the demand. He said that there would be plenty of time to deputize the men when they “would beat the company grounds”. A few moments later the barges were set aground in front of the mill entrance.

The Pinkerton men were met by a crowd of workers. Most men had firearms. Many of women and children were armed with sticks, stones, and “alarming looking nailed clubs torn from fences” (108). Seven Pinkertons leading by Heinde headed towards strikers. Suddenly, somebody opened the fire. The detectives retreated; one of them was killed and five wounded. Since then, barges were under a constant fire. On the shore, three workers were killed and several wounded. The strikers began throwing up barricades of steel and pig iron scrap. As one historian said, “The women screaming in twenty-two languages , then grabbed their kids and took to the near hills” (111). Huge O’Donnell was loosing control over the situation.

The Litlle Bill was under a heavy fire. Its captain, Rogers, managed to came alongside a barge and took aboard fourteen wounded and the dead body. On the way to Pittsburgh, the steamboat came under another concentration of bullets. The captain managed to steer the ship while lying on his stomach. Before they reached the city, one of the wounded died (112).

On the barges, the Pinkertons were taking cover below the decks. The temperature there was rising, and “it was going to be a scorcher” (113). On the ground, the strikers were preparing the dynamite. At about eight o’clock, several permanent Pinkerton’s employees made a final attempt to get ashore. It did not succeed and the detectives had to retreat. Four of them were wounded. Most of the newly-hired Pinkertons were hiding under the tables and behind piles of life-jackets. They were hired to protect the property, not to fight. Some of them jumped overboard and tried to reach an opposite shore. About twenty workers simultaneously threw dynamite at one of the barges, “which almost leaped out of the water” (115). Then, the Pinkertons could clearly be seen through the holes. “Riflemen go to work on them”. The heat within the barges was unbearable. Every time when a Pinkerton man tried to gasp fresh air at a porthole, he was immediately shot at.

The strikers tried to use two antique cannons (Antietam) that were normally used for holiday celebrations. Except for one direct hit they never hit the barges. To set the vessels on fire, the strikers poured hundreds of gallons of oil upstream of the river. But they could not fire the oil because it was “a lubricating type that burned feebly” (117). When this plan failed, the strikers “loaded a raft with oil and greasy scrap, set it aflame, and let it drift towards the barges. The raft, however, passed the barge without touching it. Only a few Pinkerton regulars were continuing the battle; “the rest lounged about, silent and inert, and sweltering… Almost three hundred able-bodied men had set aside their weapons” The Pinkertons were running out of water, and even some hardened veterans were thinking about surrender. (118).

Captain Rogers made an attempt to save the detectives. He wanted to tug the barges to safety. The Little Bill was coming from Pittsburgh flying two American flags. The captain believed that the strikers would not shoot at a national symbol. He was wrong. As soon as the steamer came within range, she was under fire of about a five hundred small arms and a little cannon. Two crew-members were wounded immediately. Mr. Rodgers had to retreat.

During the fight, O’Connell almost completely lost control over his men. But by five p.m., he and other members of the committee convinced people to cease fire and accept the Pinkertons’ surrender. The detectives were disarmed and sent under convoy into the town.

When the prisoners were marching towards the town they were attacked by a mob. First, some of them were slapped across the face. “Next clubs were used, children pelted prisoners with rocks, and then the women started in. One shoved an umbrella in a man's eye and poked it out…One striker carefully slugged each of [the prisoners] behind the ear with a large stone wrapped in leather, tied to the end of a short rope. … Sand was thrown into some Pinkertons’ eyes. Most of the Slavs disdained weapons; they simply grabbed men around the neck and punched their faces with bare fists (129). When the Pinkertons reached a town’s skating ring where they were to be kept, all of them were injured. After midnight the men were placed aboard a special train and sent to Pittsburgh.

The state militia entered Homestead on July 12. At first, they were welcomed by the strikers. “I wish to say that after suffering an attack of illegal authority we are glad to have the authority of the State here”, said O’Donnell to general Snowden, the troops’ commander. The spirit of the strikers was high, and the public opinion, in general, was on their side. “Over six hundred offers of financial assistance had reached the strikers” (164). “We can hold on for five years,” one of the members of Advisory Committee said to an New York reporter (165).

The administration slowly started taking control over its property. The management offered the strikers to return to work on July 21, at 6p.m. Frick added, “It is our desire to retain in our service all of our employees whose past record is satisfactory, and who did not take part in the attempts which have been made to interfere with our right to manage our business” (165). Nobody returned. A day after, small groups of strikebreakers began to arrive by boats from Pittsburgh. “By the later part of July about a hundred workers were on duty and living inside the plant”. By the early August, there were about a thousand strikebreakers in the factory. “On the last day of August, Henry Frick walked into the Homestead plant for the first time since June” (196).

Most of the strikebreakers were recent immigrants or the blacks. These people were desperate to get any job for almost any money. They lived in specially built barracks on the factory grounds. The strikebreakers were smuggled to the factory from Pittsburgh by boats. The strikers often shot at the hated Little Bill and other steamboats. Ugly acts of violence against the strikebreakers became a norm.

On September 30, “Chief Justice Edward Paxon instructed the grand jury to issue warrants against thirty-five Amalgamated men, including the entire Advisory Committee, for treason” (211). On November 31, the Advisory Committee was assembled for the last time. The members “voted to dissolve the committee, and announced…that the Union men would be permitted to return to the Carnegie fold” (223). One of the greatest strikes in the American history was over.

After the strike, the wages of qualified workers were reduced by almost fifty percent. “Grievance committee was abolished. Wage scales were kept secret. Espionage became the order of the day (232). Manufacturers all over the country “refused to deal with the union”. Even the smallest producers “froze out the union and dispersed its organizers” (230). The homestead strike showed that even the most powerful union could not cope with a “modern, multimillion-dollar” corporation if it is supported by the state.

Works Cited

“Seen in Homestead town: some of the things observing strangers noted”. New York Times. 21 Aug 1892. p. 14. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. ProQuest. <http://0-proquest.umi.com.library.dowling.edu/pqdweb?index=0&did=106858327&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1294004613&clientId=4341>

“Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog.” 1897. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. <http://books.google.com/books?id=pavHOWOWKEEC&lpg=PP1&dq=1897%20Sears%20Roebuck%20%26%20Co.%20Catalogue&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false>

Wolff, Leon. Lockout. New York: Harper and Row. 1965.