29 June 1892: Homestead strike
Published: June 30, 2026
Duration: 1:36
On this day, 29 June 1892, workers at the Homestead Carnegie steel plant in Pennsylvania were locked out after workers refused to accept new production demands.
Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron Steel Workers, in which skilled workers at the plant were organised. His plant manager, Henry Clay Frick, locked out the union workers, then sacked them on 2 July. The non-union, so-called "unskilled" workers then walked out on strike in protest.
Frick brought in 300 armed Pinkerton detectives to break the strike. They did kill nine strikers, but eventually a crowd of 10,000 workers, many of them ar...
Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron Steel Workers, in which skilled workers at the plant were organised. His plant manager, Henry Clay Frick, locked out the union workers, then sacked them on 2 July. The non-union, so-called "unskilled" workers then walked out on strike in protest.
Frick brought in 300 armed Pinkerton detectives to break the strike. They did kill nine strikers, but eventually a crowd of 10,000 workers, many of them ar...