Homestead+Strike+of+1892

== = = = = =__**The Union:** __ There was a union at the steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. It was called "The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers" and about 750 of the 3,000 steel mill workers were a part of it. The company’s contract with the mill that stated their wages was set to expire in 1892, the union’s leaders, Garland and O’Donnell, fought strongly to maintain the union while the mill’s manager was against it. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =__**The Company:** __ Andrew Carnegie was the owner of the mill at Homestead and Henry Frick was the manager. Carnegie proudly publicized that he was pro-labor and supported workers in forming unions. Frick on the other hand was quite the opposite, he believed in suppres sing strikes and was anti-union. However, in 1890 steel prices dropped and in order to save money Carnegie was determined to cut workers’ wages once the union contract ended, despite his voiced support for the union. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = =__**The Workers:** __ The workers at the mill in Homestead felt as if they = =were in some way owners o f the mill because of all the labor they had done. They also believed that they deserved higher wages and would not allow for Carnegie and Frick to cut them. Also, they were determined to keep the union alive and would only negotiate wages with Frick as a group, not as individuals. =
 * __Homestead Strike of 1892__**

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__ **Strike:** __ The Homestead Strike was a strike from Carnegie’s steelworkers who wanted higher wages. 3,000 of the 3,800 workers voted in favor of going on strike. Carnegie was in vacation in Europe at the time, left Frick in charge. Frick offered to negotiate individual contracts with the union workers but they rejected. Frick responded by building a fence three miles long and 12 feet high around the steelworks plant, adding peepholes for rifles and topping it with barbed wire. Workers named it “Fort Frick”. Deputy Sheriffs were sworn to protect plant but workers ordered them out of town and took on guarding it themselves. Frick called Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency and requested strikebreakers to come help. They came on barges in the night, but even still the workers noticed and decided to attack. Workers would not let the Pinkerton’s ashore and used tactics such as dynamite, pouring oil into the river to set it afire, and lighting train carts on fire and pushing the into barges. After 14 hours, the Pinkerton’s surrendered. Only 3 Pinkerton’s and 7 union workers dies during this battle.

This song was written during the time of the strike by the Union. It gives a summary of what happened from the point of view of the workers and is therefore biased in their favor

**“Song of a Strike”** <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">We are asking one another as we pass the time of day, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Why workingmen resort to arms to get their proper pay. <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">And why our labor unions they must not be recognized, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Whilst the actions of a syndicate must not be criticized. <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Now the troubles down at Homestead were brought about this way, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">When a grasping corporation had the audacity to say: <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">"You must all renounce your union and forswear your liberty <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">And we will give you a chance to live and die in slavery." <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Now this sturdy band of workingmen started out at the break of day, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Determination in their faces which plainly meant to say: <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">"No one can come and take our homes for which we have toiled so long, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">No one can come and take our places—no, here’s where we belong!" <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">When a lot of bum detectives come without authority, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Like thieves at night when decent men were sleeping peacefully— <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Can you wonder why all honest hearts with indignation burn, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">And why the slimy worm that treads the earth when trod upon will turn? <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">When they locked out men at Homestead so they were face to face <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">With a lot of bum detectives and they knew it was their place <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">To protect their homes and families, and this was neatly done, <span style="color: #3a4592; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 9px; line-height: 14px;">And the public will reward them for the victories they won.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 150%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> __<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Changes:** __ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Governor Robert E. Patterson ordered 8,500 members of the National Guard into the sight of the Homestead Strike. The strike leaders were charged with murder while most strikers where blacklisted. The Union failed to accomplish what they had set out to do, and Carnegie made sure that they were nonexistent for the next 40 years. Carnegie was negatively viewed and deemed responsible for refusing to negotiate with the Union.



//This image shows the National Guard coming to keep Homestead under control after the violence. The picture seems to make the scene seem organized, like the// //government has everything under control, even having the American flag being carried by the soldiers. It shows nothing of the chaos that took place just days before.//


 * Resources:**

"Homestead strike." //American History//. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 11 May 2011 http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/909246?terms=homestead+strike+1892

Kurland, Gerald. //Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropist and Early Tycoon of the Steel Industry//. Charlotteville, NY: Story House Corp, 1972.

[|http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~mk247899/info-pub.htm]

[] from “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,” //Labor History// 23 (Winter 1982): 60.

[] "Homestead strike." Image. Library of Congress. //American History//. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 11 May 2011.

[] The Strike Has Failed

[] Fort Frick

http://puttingzone.com/graphics/GildedAge/RobberBarons/FrickHenry_Clay1849-1919.jpg Henry Frick

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/homestead3.jpeg Mill

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/photos/images/hine4.gif Workers