Newspapers were there when the river ran red
“Capital and labor have clashed at Homestead, and the town is red with blood.”
Thus began a story in the St. Louis Dispatch during the 1892 Battle of Homestead.
July 6 marks the 125th anniversary of the deadly culmination of the Homestead Strike and Lockout. At least 11 men died after a shootout between steelworkers and Pinkerton detectives hired by Carnegie Steel Co. Many of those killed were immigrants, and some may have just been passers-by eager to get a glimpse of a firefight on the Monongahela River.
The battle and its aftermath played an important role in the history of Carnegie Steel, Homestead and American labor. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers — the union that organized the strike -— lost two-thirds of its membership, and steel unions didn’t recover until the passage of the NationalIndustrial Recovery Act in 1933.
Despite the event’s importance, the names of those who died were nearly lost. It wasn’t until 1992 — the 100th anniversary — that five unmarked graves were christened with marble plaques and a historical marker unveiled in Munhall.
That anniversary year also saw the publication of “The River Ran Red: Homestead, 1892” (University of Pittsburgh Press, $24), a compilation of contemporary media accounts and editorials by writer David P. Demarest and editor Fannia Weingartner.
So how did this deadly chapter of Pittsburgh history start? Here is an account
drawn from those articles:
The union and Carnegie Steel were negotiating a new contract in 1892. The company issued an ultimatum in May, after Andrew Carnegie left for Scotland. Henry Clay Frick, Carnegie’s partner in the company, demanded that if the union did not accept his proposed contract, the mill would be operated solely by nonunion members. In June, Frick asked for 300 Pinkerton detectives to help with “trouble” the company anticipated should it reopen with nonunion workers in July.
At midnight July 1, union and nonunion workers stood guard by the closed mill in Homestead, waiting for strikebreakers to attempt entry. That same day, the New York World reported, 1,000 workers surrounded a railroad station after hearing reports that strikebreakers were aboard a train from Ohio.
By Independence Day, The Pittsburg Dispatch reported that the strikers had adopted a military- style organization system. But, the reporter, said it was unnecessary, for “peace reigned at Homestead yesterday.” But it didn’t last. Around 11 p. m. July 5, 300 Pinkerton detectives boarded two barges in Bellevue on the Ohio River. Their goal? To break the strike. The Pinkertons reached the Monongahela shore near the Pump House — the only mill building still standing — around 5 a. m. July 6, and gunfire was exchanged. Throughout the day, workers and townspeople attacked the Pinkertons’ barges by shooting cannons and throwing dynamite. Finally, at 6 p. m., the Pinkertons surrendered.
On July 7, the Pittsburg Press listed 11 casualties. Joseph Sotak, Peter Ferris, Silas Wain, John E. Morris, Thomas Weldon, Boritz Markowisky, Peter Heise, Robert Foster and William Johnston, all of Homestead, were dead. Two Pinkertons — J. W. Kline and Edward Connors — also died in the skirmish.
Despite the strikers’ apparent victory, the battle wasn’t over. The state militia arrived on the morning of July 12, and within hours Carnegie Steel executives were in their offices, and strikebreakers were allowed to enter the mill.
“Mob rule in Homestead has come to an inglorious end,” declared The New-York Times on July 13. By July 18, the tide had turned completely against the strikers. Martial law — “bayonet rule,” as the Times called it — was in force.
Local newspapers were as divided as the two sides in the conflict. The Pittsburgh Catholic, for example, was pro- labor, while the Commercial Gazette called the strikers’ actions nothing more than “brutality inflicted upon the defenseless Pinkertons.”
While the media debated the conflict, Frick continued to bring in nonunion workers. Some were black steelworkers from the South, who continued to fight their own battles with discrimination for decades. The Amalgamated union leaders, meanwhile, were blacklisted and never worked in a steel mill again.
The history of t he Homestead Strike has been debated, but its role in the fall of union membership is clear. Until the New Deal and the 1930s, unions barely existed in the steel industry.