The Homestead Strike In Homestead Pennsylvania, Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish man owned a steel plant. Carnegie had emigrated from Scotland as a young boy, and had had to work his way up the American work industry. He had a business partner named Henry Clay Frick who owned a coke manufacturing company. Carnegie and his friend had an individualistic opinion when it came to the matters of the workers union, and opposed any form of authority by anyone. In 1892 while Carnegie was on a visit to Scotland, Frick informed all workers that the contract with current workers would no longer be honored or acceptable and also informed them that anyone who is still interested in continue working would need to switch to a nonunion labor. This greatly outraged the laborers. Frick began to construct a wooden fence around the mill, and called for the assistance of the Pinkertons, a detective agency, but in reality were a well-armed mercenary army of private police officials used to crush labor strikes. The Pinkertons were instructed to arrive by the boat in high hopes that they would go unnoticed. Unfortunately, some scouts had observed the odds in events and were able to realize what …show more content…
There were several heated disputes about the governments’ involvement in labor disputes. On July 23rd an angry anarchist broke into Frick’s office. Frick ended up shot and stabbed him. Despite this violent encounter, he refused to resign from his office, and wrote a statement saying he could not be stopped. Two years after the homestead strike came the depression, which left thousands of people jobless and in debt. The homestead strike can be linked to the failure of the creation of a working class in America, but made the federal government aware of the need to intervene in labor disputes. Presently in America, there a limited unions and people tend to work as