Event

Homestead lockout and battle

Lockout at the Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead works in 1892, with a battle on 6 July between strikers and 300 Pinkerton guards.

6 links, 1 backed by primary records. 2 more in open data

Connections 6

Henry Clay Frick chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company Scholarship & press 1
Pinkerton National Detective Agency guards brought by barge Scholarship & press 1
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union at the works Scholarship & press 1
Carnegie Steel Company owner of the works Primary record 2
Andrew Carnegie controlling owner, in Scotland during the battle Scholarship & press 1

Timeline 1 date

Proof 2 sources

Battle of Homestead (Behind the Marker), Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Explore PA History. Scholarship & press
Frick prepared for the conflict by encircling the mill with an eleven-foot fence topped with barbed wire, ordering up the Pinkertons, and shutting down the open hearth, armor, and rolling departments in the last days of June.
On July 6, the company tried to move 300 Pinkerton guards into the heavily fortified mill, floating them up the river on two large covered barges.
The Amalgamated Association was defeated.
Am with you to end[,] whether works run this year, next or never. No longer question of wages or dollars.
On all these matters, Carnegie left detailed instructions with Frick before leaving for Scotland on his usual summer trip.
both Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie agreed that when the contract expired in July 1892, they would break the union and restore their complete control over the mills.
In twelve hours of fierce battle, seven strikers and three Pinkertons were killed.
Investigation of the Employment of Pinkerton Detectives in Connection with the Labor Troubles at Homestead, Pa. (House Miscellaneous Document 335), U.S. House of Representatives, 52nd Congress (scan via Internet Archive), 1892. Primary record
We did not care whether they were union or non-union, but we wanted men with whom we could deal individually. We did not propose to deal with the Amalgamated Association after that date as we had plainly told them.

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