1. The Homestead Strike
of 1892
Andrew Carnegie, steel and the rights of labour at the
turn of the century
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

2. Andrew
Carnegie
Steel magnate
“Richest Man In America”
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

3. Homestead Steel Works
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

4. Price of Steel
• Was dropping from $35
a ton to $22
• Wages needed to be cut
• What to do?
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

5. Break the union
The Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

6. Henry Frick Andrew Carnegie
“We... approve of anything you do.”
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

7. The Frick Collection in New York
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

8. There had been other strikes
in 1892.
Railway switchmen in Buffalo
Coal miners in Tennessee
Copper miners in Idaho
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

9. Frick locks out 1,100
workers
They burned him in effigy
They just wanted to keep
their union
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

10. "This is your chance to re-organize the whole affair," Carnegie wrote to
Frick. "Far too many men required by Amalgamated rules."
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

11. Workers began to
guard the plant
themselves.
Frick ordered in
Pinkertons private
army to disband
the workers.
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

12. Three detectives, 9
workers were dead
or dying.
PA militia called in.
Strike disbanded.
Strikers charged.
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

13. Union was busted
1891: 24, 000 members
1894: 10, 000
Carnegie and Frick got their way.
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

14. What does the Homestead Strike of 1892 tell us?
St. Paul Daily Globe, July 3 1892
Tuesday, 5 February, 13

15. "It's easy to say that Carnegie was a hypocrite," states historian
Joseph Frazier Wall. "And there is an element of hypocrisy clearly in
between what he said and what was done. But it's a little too easy to
simply dismiss the whole incident on Carnegie's part as an act of
hypocrisy. There is this curious reason as to why Carnegie felt it
necessary to even enunciate the rights of labor. Frick was the norm,
not Carnegie, in management's relationship with labor at that time.
And, one can only answer that, once again, it's being torn between
wanting to pose as a great democrat and liberal and at the same
time wanting to make sure Carnegie Steel came out on top."
Tuesday, 5 February, 13