July 6, 1892: The Homestead Strike Collapses

July 6, 1892: The Homestead Strike collapses, a blow to the American labor movement.

Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant, had settled in Pittsburgh, and became a true American success story, going from a practically anonymous and interchangeable steel worker to the head of Carnegie Steel. Thanks to him, the American steel and coal industries became possible, and made gobs of money for those invested in them.

But like so many poor men who became rich, Carnegie forgot where he came from -- in this case, the steel mills rather than Dunfermline, Scotland. His operations and hiring grew, but his workers' wages did not. At times, they even dropped.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA for short) organized in 1876, and organized strikes at the Carnegie-owned Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Works in Homestead, 7 miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh, in 1881, and again in 1889. Both times, the union gained what can be termed, at best, minor victories.

On July 1, 1892, with the contract negotiated in 1889 having run out, and no new contract having been negotiated, the AA launched another strike at Homestead. Henry Clay Frick, running the Works for Carnegie, closed them. He announced plans to reopen them on July 6, with new workers -- strikebreakers.

Publicly, Carnegie was pro-union and anti-strikebreaker, and said that keeping the Works running was "not worth one drop of blood." Privately, he told Frick to do whatever he felt was necessary to keep the Works running.

Guessing that the strikers would attack the strikebreakers, Frick hired men of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, armed men, as, for all intents and purposes, a private army. And when the strikebreakers went to work on the morning of July 6, the strikers moved forward. So did the Pinkerton agents.

Gunfire was exchanged. Since the strikers outnumbered the agents, the agents surrendered. They were stripped of their weapons, and safely taken downtown. But when they got there, they learned that, despite having willingly fired on the strikers, the agents would not be charged with murder, or even with manslaughter.

There were 7 deaths among the strikers. The number of deaths among the agents is in dispute, with various official records citing as few as 3, and as many as 8.

The next day, July 7, Governor Robert E. Pattison of Pennsylvania (for whom the Avenue on which the South Philadelphia Sports Complex would be built was named) called in the State Militia. It wasn't enough for Carnegie and Frick. On July 18, martial law was declared.

On July 23, Alexander Berkman, an anarchist with no connection to organized labor or the steel or coal industries, arrived in Pittsburgh from New York, walked into Frick's office, and shot him. Frick survived, and was back at work in a week. Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He served 14, was released, resumed his activities, fell into ill health, and committed suicide in 1936. Nonetheless, he outlived most of the participants in the strike.

But the assassination attempt hurt public support for the strike. The American Federation of Labor withdrew his support. The AA voted to go back to work on Carnegie's terms.

But, much as Alfred Nobel would after a mistaken obituary called him "the merchant of death" in 1888, Joseph Pulitzer would after the newsboys' strike of 1899, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. would after a massacre at his Colorado coal mine in 1914, Carnegie developed a guilty conscience.

He ended up giving more money to charities than any human being before him. He particularly began to donate to the building of libraries, including the library at what is now known as Carnegie-Mellon University in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. If you're a baseball fan, you may have seen the photograph of Bill Mazeroski hitting the home run that won the 1960 World Series for the Pirates. The Carnegie Library can be seen beyond the left-field fence at Forbes Field.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Carnegie was the richest person in the world, but he said, "I was born poor, and I wish to die that way." He died in 1919, as did Frick, and both were still fabulously wealthy.

Public anger over the handling of the Homestead Strike may have hurt President Benjamin Harrison's bid for re-election. He lost to Grover Cleveland, whom he had defeated in 1888. Cleveland thus became the 1st, and remains the only, former President to regain the office.

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July 6, 1892 was a Wednesday. Baseball was the only team sport in America that dared to be openly professional, and, after the collapses of the Players' League in 1890 and the American Association in 1891, the National League was the only league left. All 12 of its teams were in action that day:

* The New York Giants beat the Louisville Colonels, 5-4 at Eclipse Park in Louisville.

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms beat the Chicago Colts, 5-2 at West Side Park in Chicago. Still carrying the name they got in 1887, after several of their players got married in the off-season, the Brooklyn club would eventually be known as the Dodgers. The Chicago club, formerly the White Stockings, had been renamed the Colts because they had so many young players. In 1903, they became the Cubs.

* The Washington Senators beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-8 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. The strike had no effect on the Pirates, as their home was on the other side of downtown from the Works.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at League Park in Cleveland. A new League Park would be built on the site in 1910.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 11-5 at League Park in Cincinnati. Crosley Field would be built on the site in 1912.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Beaneaters, 10-8 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. A new Sportsman's Park would be built on the site in 1909. These Browns would become the Cardinals, and bore no connection to the American League team that would take the name.

After the 1899 season, Louisville, Cleveland, Baltimore and Washington were eliminated from the NL. The contraction of the NL from 12 to 8 teams made the founding of the American League in 1901 possible.