Homestead Strike
Munhall, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
On the morning of July 6, 1892, on orders of the Carnegie Steel Co., 300 Pinkerton agents attempted to land near here; strikers, citizens repulsed them. Seven workers, three Pinkertons were killed. 8,000 state militia arrived July 12; by November the strike was broken.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
At dawn on July 6, 1892, the Homestead Strike erupted into open battle when 300 Pinkerton agents, hired on behalf of Carnegie Steel, tried to land by barge to break the union's hold on the mill. Strikers and townspeople drove them back in a bloody firefight that left seven workers and three Pinkertons dead. Days later 8,000 state militia marched in to restore the company's control, and by November the strike—and the union—had been crushed.
Why it matters
Homestead stands as a landmark defeat for organized labor that shaped the balance of power between workers and industry for decades, and it remains one of the most studied confrontations of the American labor movement.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Andrew Carnegie
Related events
- · Homestead Strike
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
Homestead, PA · est. 2003
By 1919 Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was already a legend of the American labor movement, a fearless organizer who called herself the miners' angel. Arrested and jailed in Homestead that year for addressing striking steelworkers, she met a judge's demand for her speaking permit with defiance, invoking Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams as the only authority she needed. Her wit turned a courtroom rebuke into a ringing claim that the right to speak was as old as the Republic itself.
Frances Perkins
Homestead, PA · est. 2003
When Frances Perkins came to Homestead in July 1933 as the nation's first female cabinet secretary, local officials tried to silence her — barring her from meeting aggrieved steelworkers in a nearby park. Undaunted, the U.S. Secretary of Labor simply moved the gathering onto federal ground at the local post office, where free speech could not be denied. As the architect of much of the New Deal, including Social Security and wage-and-hour laws, Perkins served longer than any labor secretary in history.
Homestead Strike Victims
Munhall, PA · est. 1993
In the summer of 1892, workers at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steelworks clashed with a barge-load of Pinkerton guards hired to break their union during a bitter lockout. The July 6 gun battle along the Monongahela left men dead on both sides and became one of the defining confrontations of American labor history. Buried in these two adjoining cemeteries are six of the seven steelworkers who died, ordinary men whose graves mark the human cost of the struggle between organized labor and industrial capital.
The Great Steel Strike of 1919
Braddock, PA · est. 1994
By 1919 the mills around Braddock were the beating heart of American steel, and that autumn more than 350,000 workers walked off the job in the largest strike the nation had yet seen. Immigrant laborers demanding union recognition and an end to the grueling twelve-hour day found an ally in Rev. Adalbert Kazincy of St. Michael's, who opened his church as a rallying place when public halls were closed to them. After fifteen bitter weeks the strike collapsed, and organized labor in steel would not recover for another generation.