Homestead Strike Summary

This book describes two of the transforming events in America’s economic life, the Homestead Strike and the evolution of Carnegie Steel Company into United States Steel Corporation. Les Standiford frames the events and clash of wills of Carnegie and Frick in the moral framework of Weber’s analysis of the Protestant ethic which some believe gave moral self-justification to those captains of industry. This book views the Homestead Strike through the prism of the personalities and values of two titans of that era, Carnegie and Frick. Did Carnegie, the older, wealthier and more visible, hold the higher moral ground? Standiford declares no winner. Carnegie and Frick’s basic economic principals were not driven by marketing or sales quota, but cost

That vertical integration required an assured source of coke as a key ingredient. Henry Clay Frick was an essential addition to the Carnegie Steel empire because the H.C. Frick Coke Company measured large coke making facilities. Carnegie acquired the majority interest in the Frick Coke Company. Carnegie quickly came to the conclusion that Frick was a “genius” and the “Man” and designated Frick as the president of Carnegie Steel. Standiford describes the cataclysmic confrontation with members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AAISW) and some 300 Pinkerton Agents mobilized by Frick resulting in 35 fatalities and hundreds of wounded. After this war the union forced the Pinkertons to surrender and subsequently withdraw. The victory was short lived as the National Guard arrived, took control of the s Robert G.

The singular event of the Homestead Strike turned a highly profitable and mutually beneficial relationship into a series of disagreements which only concluded with the sale of Carnegie Steel to the J.P. Morgan creation, United States Steel Corporation for $480 million dollars, approximately $329 billion dollars in 2006 dollars. That final transaction occurred only after Carnegie’s attempt to impose the terms of the Iron Clad Agreement on Frick. The Iron Clad Agreement required any shareholder of Carnegie Steel to sell his stock back to the Company at book value if so requested by the holders of 75% of the outstanding stock Carnegie owned 45% of the stock. Carnegie demanded that Frick tender his stock which would have resulted in Frick being paid approximately $1.5 million dollars. A settlement was reached and less than three years later when Carnegie Steel was sold to United States Steel Corporation, Frick was paid $51 million dollars. These events occurred in pre-Bankruptcy Code and pre National Labor Relations Act world where the battle between capital and labor was literally a street fight.