10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America

July 6, 1892 – The Homestead Strike (1x8)

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On July 6, 1892, the union working at Carnegie Steel Company went on strike due to pay cuts and poor working wages. Just before the strike, Andrew Carnegie left for a trip to Scotland, leaving the company in the hands of his manager, Henry Clay Frick, who was well-known to be very anti-union. Frick would bring in replacement workers and used Pinkerton agents to safeguard their arrival. When the workers attempted to go to work, the strikers and the Pinkerton agents got into a gunfight, leaving ten people dead. Two brigades of Pennsylvania state militia were called out to restore piece. In an attempt to get rid of Frick, anarchist Alexander Berkman tried to murder Frick, but he was unsuccessful, and ended up turning public opinion away from the striking workers. Carnegie Steel Company would go on to resume operations without the union, using mostly unskilled immigrant laborers.