Download x district x buildings (s) x structure x private x in

DRAFT:September 24, 1990
1. Battle of Homestead Thematic District
2. 621-623 East Eight Ave, xx, Homestead, Pennsylvania, xx,
Allegheny, xxx and several structures, a railroad bridge crossing
the Monongahela river, and a section of the river bank west of PA
Route 837, Munhall, Pennsylvania, xx, Allegheny, xxx
3.
x district
x buildings (s)
x structure
x private
x in process
x unoccupied
x yes: restricted
x industrial
x commercial
The United Steelworkers of America are negotiating with several
agencies over tax liens with the intent to buy the Bost Building
from the current owners. Negotiations between the Steel Industry
Task Force and the Park Corporation for the Pinkerton Landing
site have stalled. There are no plans to acquire the Pittsburgh
& Lake Erie (P&LE) bridge.
4.
Multiple
[Here will go a list of property owners]
5. Allegheny County Office Building
Ross Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
6.
Correspondence: Greg Ramsey, Pennsylvania Bureau of Historic
Preservation to Randolph Harris, June 17, 1987.
Homestead Steel Works and Carrie Furnaces. Homestead.
Pennsylvania. Inventory of Historic Structures and their
Significance. HAER, 1990.
Homestead National Register District, 1989
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
7. Description
x good-fair
x altered
x original sites
N/A
The Battle of Homestead Thematic District consists of two noncontiguous commercial and industrial properties respectively.
The resources are the only surviving structures that played a
part in, or have become intimately associated with, the July 6,
1892 Pinkerton Landing and Battle. The Battle and the transport
of the Pinkertons through the town by an angry mob was one of the
central events of the Homestead Strike of 1892. The district
includes two buildings, two structures, and one archeological
feature of which three are significant and two are contributing
resources. There are no intrusions.
Resource Inventory:
#1. 621-623 E. 8th Avenue at Heisel Street, Homestead: Bost
Building, historic name; The Columbia Hotel, current name. Now
abandoned, this three-story rectangular red brick commercial
building was built in 1892. In addition to the facade on Eight
Avenue, the Bost Building also has a similar, but less formal,
facade facing Heisel Street. Black Carrara glass and terrazzo
bulkheads frame the first floor of the Eight Avenue facade and
probably dates from the 1940s. A glass block wall curves back to
a recessed entrance on the eastern half of the front facade.
Each of the upper floors of the main facade have six wood sash
windows with stone lintels and sills. Additional stone lintels
connect the tops of the windows in an intermittent string course.
The two center windows are more closely spaced. A decorative
brick band below a corbeled cornice wraps around to the Heisel
Street facade. In addition to the decorative band, the Heisel
Street facade has wood sash windows with stone lintels and sills.
The windows and doors of the other sides have segmental arches.
Several windows and doors are bricked-up. The first floor was
most recently occupied by a restaurant and an office, while the
upper floors are subdivided into offices and sleeping rooms. A
wall divides first and second floor interiors. The second floor
has hallways on either side of the dividing wall with separate,
but communicating, staircases and landings. A single stair
provides access to the third floor. The interior retains about
one half of the apparently original door and window frames,
several gas fireplaces, one brick fireplace mantel, and its
original plaster and lath walls. Above at least one of the two
suspended ceilings on the first floor is a pressed metal ceiling.
The building is in poor condition due to water damage and
vandalism.
[summary history of building could go here]
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
The building retains a high level of integrity given its
extended commercial use, the intactness of the interior and
exterior walls, the amount of surviving woodwork, and in light of
its association with transcend events of American history. The
Bost Building is nationally significant as the headquarters of
the Advisory Committee of the Homestead lodges of the Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers during the Homestead Strike
of 1892. The building is currently listed on the National
Register as part of the Homestead Historic District.
#2. Located on the left bank of the Monongahela River and
extending 900 feet upstream from the P&LE bridge, Homestead Steel
Works, Munhall: River Gate, historic name; Pinkerton Landing
Site, current name. This strip of river bank is 75 feet wide,
exclusive of the land around the Pump House and Water Tower, and
consists of a Union Railroad right of way, a concrete retaining
wall, and any archeological resources that are protected by them.
At the time of the Battle a rail siding ran from the bridge,
between the river and the water's edge, towards the original
water tower and two small buildings, which may have been older
pump houses, before reversing direction and ending at the river
bank. At the water's edge logs were pounded into the bank to
form the actual docking area. Timbers can still be found at the
water's edge. This area was enclosed by the wood fence that
Henry Clay Frick built around the plant in 1892, and when the
barges containing the Pinkertons passed under the railroad bridge
about 4:30 am on July 6, 1892, the workers knocked down a section
and rushed to the landing site. When the Pinkertons tried to
disembark shots were exchanged and the workers hastily retreated
up the steep embankment with their dead and wounded. The workers
set up defensive positions at top of the embankment behind pig
iron and steel beam barricades and in and about the adjacent
structures. The retaining wall and fill of this significant
feature may preserve archeological remains that yield information
important to our understanding of the Battle.
#3. Located on the left bank of the Monongahela River
approximately 400 feet upstream from the P&LE bridge, Homestead
Steel Works, Munhall: Pump House, historic name; River Pump House
#1, current name. This building is composed of five sections
whose overall dimensions are about 150 x 40 feet. Two other
additions are no longer extant. The original 1891 Pump House is
the three bay, one-story, brick section in the middle of the
complex. A riveted Fink truss with the vestiges of a monitor
replaced the original timber and tie-rod Howe truss. Doors and
windows have been blocked or altered from the original
arrangement of a wide segmental arched doorway in a corbeled
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
recess flanked by similar corbeled panels with two narrow arched
windows. Similar types of alterations were made to its slightly
later twin immediately upstream from the original building. The
ruined foundations of two lean-tos built in 1912 and 1914 to
house two 20 million gallon pumps are immediately upstream of the
second addition. A one-story brick and wood comfort
station/office was built in 1921 on the site of a boiler house
built after the Battle to provide steam to operate the pumps. A
two-story, 17 x 20 foot brick transformer building was built in
1923 and expanded again in 1943. Pumping equipment in the
basement includes: 2 Wilson-Snyder pumps missing motors; a Layne
& Bowler sump pump; an unidentified pump powered by a GE motor
and a Worthington motor powering two pumps. A barometric
condenser that once condensed steam for steam-powered pumps
stands on the upstream end of the building. The oldest part of
Pump House #1 preserves the only fabric or artifact known to
survive above ground from the 1892 Pinkerton Landing Site.
According to the July 7, 1892 issue of the Pittsburgh Post;
In the pumping station of the steel works had
congregated many strikers who shot at the Pinkertons
through the windows. This building is of brick and
about 50 by 75 feet in area. In a deep pit are the
pumps and engines. The pit is several feet smaller
than the upper or brick part, leaving a narrow shelf
all the way around, but a few feet below the window.
Upon this the men stood. It was here that John Morris,
Welshman, met his death. He stood looking out of a
window when a bullet from a rifle in the hands of a
Pinkerton struck him fairly in the forehead. With a
cry of agony he fell back into the pit, a distance of
fully 25 feet.
While there is another somewhat contradictory account of Morris 1
death, the amount of detail to the Post's account and its close
correspondence of the description of the Pump House to an 1891
blueprint gives more credence to the above account. 1 Photographs
of the Pump House show the commanding view the Pump House windows
offered the workers, and it is inconceivable from a tactical
standpoint that the building would not have been used. This is a
significant resource for its use by the workers during the
Battle.
#4. Located on the left bank of the Monongahela River near the
Pump House, Homestead Steel Works, Munhall: Water Tower. The
Water Tower is an open-top tank constructed of ten horizontal
1 Burgoyne, p. 250, reports court testimony that confirms the
Post account.
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
bands of riveted plates 50 feet high and 40 feet in diameter
resting on a 22h feet high octagonal brick base. The two top
bands of the tank have aged differently than the others and are a
later addition. The base has recessed corbeled panels with
arched doors in four of the eight sides. A stairway with five
flights gives access to the top of the tank. The current Water
Tower was constructed in 1893 about 100 feet inland from the
water tower present at the time of the Pinkerton Landing in July
1892. While it is entirely possible that the original wood-stave
and metal-hoop water tower would have needed repairs after the
Battle (given the amount of shooting and the Water Tower's
elevated vantage point), construction of the current structure
was probably tied to 1893 plant expansion. Because the original
water tower was prominently featured in the illustrations that
accompanied the press accounts of the Battle, and because the
original water tower was replaced almost immediately after the
Battle, the current structure has been vested with the
associations of the original. The Water Tower further
contributes to the district because its close links with the
industrial function of the Pump House.
#5. Spanning the Monongahela River on the P&LE right of way
between Munhall and Swissvale: Pemickey Bridge, historic name;
P&LE Railroad Bridge, current name. Rebuilt in 1960 on the same
abutments of the bridge that were extant during the Battle, this
bridge consists of three polygonal top chord through trusses, 2
or 3 deck trusses and several girder spans totaling about 1600
feet. The American Bridge division of US Steel used Warren
trussing with both sets of verticals for both the through and
deck spans. Known in 1892 as the Pemickey bridge, the original
bridge was configured with two double intersection through Pratt
trusses and three double intersection deck Pratt spans in
addition to several girder spans. It is entirely possible that
the current girder spans are original. In reporting the events
of July 6, Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette felt it was important to
report when the Pinkertons 1 barges passed under the bridge.
During the Battle itself the bridge offered a view of the workers
lines to the townspeople and the curious. The pump house
obscured the view of the barges, and those who ventured further
out to get a better view quickly retreated. The P&LE Bridge
contributes to the district because it played a role in the
Battle and because it greatly adds to the industrial character of
the battlefield.
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
8. Significance
x 1800-1899
x Social/humanitarian
dates:1892
Builder/Architect: unknown/Homestead Steel
Works/American Bridge
The Battle of Homestead Thematic District evokes one of the
most disastrous and bitterly fought strikes in the nineteenth
century. While "the solidarity and tenacity of the Homestead
strikers, union and non-union, skilled, and unskilled, [was] a
high point in the development of labor militancy and unity,"2 the
Homestead strike of 1892 ushered in a non-union era in the
American steel industry that lasted until the 1930s.
In the late 1870s the converting mills of the Edgar Thomson
Works (ET) produced more ingots than its rail mill could use.
Rather than slow down the mill, the excess steel was sold on the
open market to steel fabricators who up to this point had always
used the much more expensive crucible steel. The suitability of
this Bessemer steel for springs, axles, plowshares and other
articles created a large market for merchant steel. In 1879
improvements were made to eliminate the bottleneck and ET began
using all of its steel for rails. The fabricators were suddenly
left without a supply of cheap steel. 3
In order to ensure a reliable supply of Bessemer billets for
their mills, Hussey, Howe & Co., Park Bros. & Co., Singer, Nimick
& Co., Miller, Metcalf & Parkin, William Clarke & Co., and Andrew
Kloman formed the Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company in 1879. The
new company constructed two four-ton Bessemer converters and a
28" blooming mill on the left bank of the Monongahela river just
downstream from ET. Andrew Kloman, a gifted mechanic and an
embittered former partner of Carnegie's, helped design the plant
along with James Hemphill. Alexander Holley, the foremost
authority on Bessemer plants, advised the company on patent
infringement avoidance. 4 The mill was the first Bessemer plant
2Philip S. Fonor. History of the Labor Movement in the United
States; From the Founding of the American Federation of Labor to
the Emergence of American Imperialism. (New York, 1955): 218.
3Paul L. Krause. The Road to Homestead. Ph.D. dissertation,
Duke University, pp. 349-351; Wall, pp. 474-475; Lynne Synder and
Michael Workman.
Edgar Thomson Works; Inventory of Historic
Structures and Historic Overview, HAER: forthcoming.
4Krause, pp. 353-364.
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
in the country constructed for non-rail production. 5 Kloman died
before completing rail and structural mills adjacent to the steel
works for his own use. The Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Company
acquired Kloman's mills and began producing rails in direct
competition with ET. In 1883, after initial success, a depressed
rail market and labor trouble prompted most of the shareholders
to sell out to Carnegie. Reorganized with certain other
Carnegie-controlled interests as Carnegie, Phipps & Co., the
Homestead Works were greatly expanded during the remainder of the
1880s to produce plate, open hearth steel, and structural beams.
The scale of the expansion at Homestead and at other Carnegie
properties prompted a reorganization under a single new
partnership called Carnegie Steel Co., Ltd. Concluded on July 1,
1892, the same day the contract expired at Homestead, the
reorganization sought to increase capitalization, centralize
management and provide for partnership sharing. 6
Two strikes at Homestead
1882 and 1889
form a backdrop
to the events of 1892. In January of 1882, employees of the
Pittsburgh Bessemer Works refused to sign a contract that both
prohibited membership in the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers and prohibited three or more employees leaving
without advance notice7 . Violence broke out when the company
hired non-union workers. It hired armed guards backed up by the
county sheriff, and evicted strikers from company housing. The
burgess deputized strikers and the workers formed an Advisory
Committee to coordinate activities and maintain order. After
defaulting on several contracts, the company reopened the works
with both union and non-union shifts. Superior production of the
union workers quickly displaced the non-union workers.
The victory at Homestead, however, was an exception to the
general decline in organized labor's fortunes in the 1880s. By
1889 Homestead was the region's only unionized steel mill.
Following his successful defeat of the Amalgamated at ET,
Carnegie's new contract for Homestead called for a sliding scale
based on the price of steel that would cut wages 25% overall, a
twelve-hour day, a non-union shop, and a January expiration date.
Crooker, Jr. "The Development of the American Blooming
Mill."
Proceedings of Engineers' Society of Western
Pennsylvania vol. 13, (1897): 336.
6Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh, 1889, rpt.
of 1970 ed.) pp. 534-536.
7Paul L. Krause. The Road to Homestead. Ph.D., Duke University,
1987.
The summaries of the 1882 and 1889 strikes are based on
chapters 5 and 6. Paul Krause argues that the transition from iron
to steel brought with it values that clashed with those developed
and nurtured by the working classes.
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
Both the Amalgamated Association and the Knights of Labor, who
contrary to union policy cooperated with each other, strengthened
their organizations through membership drives. As it did in
1882, the Amalgamated formed a joint Advisory Committee, and
sealed off all approaches to Homestead with armed steelworkers.
Ten days after locking-out the employees, the company sent
thirty-one non-union employees with the county sheriff by train.
A very large crowd met the train. Yielding passage into the mill
for the sheriff, the crowd blocked the non-union workers. The
crowd assaulted those workers who did not flee. When the sheriff
returned two days later with 125 armed deputies, they were met by
an even larger crowd that did not let them move. The crowd
successfully intimidated the deputies, and when one deputy
decided to leave, his fellows followed suit. (Carnegie hired,
but appears not to have used, 100 Pinkertons.)
As talks commenced in January of 1892 on a new three year
contract between the Homestead lodges of the Amalgamated and the
Carnegie, Phipps & Company, the Amalgamated did not anticipate
having difficulty concluding a contract with the company.
However, the contract talks would become bitter and hopeless.
The new player, Henry Clay Frick, greatly affected negotiations.
Frick, who became chairman of the new Carnegie Steel Co., dealt
ruthlessly with strikers at his coke works and had earned a
notorious reputation among workingmen. The contract proposed by
the company was very similar to the one it put forward in 1889: a
January expiration date, a reduced minimum tonnage rate from $25
to $22, and a wage scale for unskilled workers pegged to the
tonnage rate. Frick also insisted that the Amalgamated accept
these terms by June 24 or the company would no longer recognize
the union. The company defended its proposed reduction in the
minimum tonnage rate on the grounds that it could not afford the
higher rates, especially after spending millions to modernize the
Homestead Works. The Amalgamated claimed that the company had
deliberately depressed steel prices by cornering the market,
which, along with the importation of cheap steel from abroad,
depressed steel prices. The Amalgamated could not afford
reductions in the tonnage rate and sliding scale that they
reckoned added up to a wage reduction of not 8%, as the company
claimed, but 25% .
Frick and Carnegie could not tolerate Amalgamated wage
demands and work place practices which they felt interfered too
heavily in the management of the plant and cost the company too
much money. Both men and their top management felt that the
sliding scale unfairly favored the Amalgamated. They reasoned
that it profited when the tonnage rate increased, but the company
had to absorb a loss when the rate fell below the minimum.
However, the company never really accepted the sliding scale
8
Leon Wolff, Lockout (New York, 1965) p. 78.
8
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
concept and sought to take advantage of a depressed market to
break the union.
The Carnegie Steel Company aimed to eliminate the
Amalgamated from Homestead much as it had done with the union at
ET in 1888. Indeed, the company aimed to eliminate all of its
unionized workers. Contrary to Carnegie's public pronouncements
in defense of strikes and of organized labor, the company simply
would not co-exist with the Amalgamated, and Carnegie's obsessive
concern with reducing operating costs in order to undercut his
competition and dominate the steel market doomed the Amalgamated.
As the June 24 deadline came and went, both sides began
making preparations for the coming strike. Frick constructed a
high wooden fence around the perimeter of the mill, and lockedout the workers before the contract expired. Final arrangements
with the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the steamboat company
that would transport them to Homestead were made on June 25th. 9
In addition to holding a general meeting to endorse the union
officials 1 actions, the workers organized themselves by forming
an Advisory Committee from the officers of the various lodges.
Renting "a big unfurnished room" 10 in "Host's New
Building," 11 the Advisory Committee organized the workers on
military lines. Pickets working three eight-hour shifts sealed
off the town and the mill by watching "the river front, the water
gate and pumps [Landing Site], the railway stations and the main
gates of the plants." Reports were to be sent to headquarters
every half hour. 12 The river itself was guarded by numerous
skiffs and the Edna, a steam launch hired by the workers. 13
Several false alarms demonstrated the effectiveness of their
organization. Additional preparations included
the erection and furnishing of a signal station. This
is located on the roof of the headquarters. The tower
commands a full and unobstructed view of Fort Frick and
the surrounding country. With the aid of a fieldglass
the man in the tower can gaze over the ramparts and
take a leisurely survey of what is going on in the
enemy's camp. During the day he can signal by a system
, pp. 552-556; Arthur G. Burgoyne. The Homestead Strike
of 1892 (Pittsburgh, 1979, rpt. of 1893 ed.) pp. 31-33; Pittsburgh
Press. July 11, 1892, p. 2.
10Pittsburah Dispatch. July 1, 1892, p. 1.
11Homestead Local News. July 2, 1892, p. 3.
12Pittsburqh Dispatch. July 4, 1892, p. 1.
13Pittsburgh Dispatch. July 2, 1892, p. 1.
>RAFT;September 24, 1990
of variously colored flags to the pickets stationed on
the hills across the river, at night a strong flash
will be used. The river patrol will send up rockets
when necessary, and it will also make a liberal use of
colored fire. That hoarse-voiced steam whistle at the
electric light works will be reserved for special
occasions, but in great emergencies it will sound the
general alarm. 14
Other groups also made preparations for the coming storm.
The Postal Telegraph Company installed an office in the Bost
Building on July 4. Four operators did enough business on the
first day to cover the cost of stringing wires from a point four
miles away. Western Union arrived on the 5th. A dozen reporters
from major eastern cities were in Homestead in time to witness
the Battle. 15
The first skirmish took place on July 5th when the County
Sheriff sought to take possession of the mill at the request of
the company. The Advisory Committee provided a body guard for
the Sheriff's party to see how securely the Company's property
was kept. After the Sheriff returned to the Bost Building from
his tour, the Committee refused the Sheriff's intent to return
with deputies to guard the mill. When the Sheriff declined the
Committee's offer to provide bonded guards from its own
membership, the Committee dissolved itself and destroyed its
records. 1 The Committee took this action to avoid
responsibility for anything that might happen should the Sheriff
attempt to occupy the mill. Nevertheless, newspaper accounts of
subsequent events make it clear that the Advisory Committee
continued to function.
The actual Battle began about 10 pm on July 5. Two barges,
the Iron Mountain and the Monongahela left Allegheny City (now
Pittsburgh's North Side) for the Davis Island lock and dam
downstream from Pittsburgh near Bellevue. Under preparation
since June 25, the 210 foot covered barges were equipped with
bunks and cooking facilities for about 500 people. The curious
were told that the barges were being outfitted for work on the
Beaver Dam down stream . Neither the workers' lookouts nor the
newspaper reporters believed this explanation after rifle boxes
14Pittsburqh Dispatch, July 4, 1892. p. 1.
15Homestead Local News. July 23, 1982, p. 3.
16Pittsburah Dispatch. July 6, 1892, p. 1; Pittsburgh Times.
July 6, 1892, p. 1.
17Pittsburqh Dispatch, July 5, 1892, p. 7.
10
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
were loaded onto the barges. 18 At Davis Island the barges took
on about 300 Pinkertons who had arrived by rail from Ashtabula,
Ohio. The tugboats, the Tide and the Little Bill headed upstream
for Homestead with the loaded barges. Shortly before reaching
Lock #1 on the Monongahela, the Tide developed engine trouble and
turned back. The Little Bill took both barges through the locks
and proceeded up the placid, fog-covered, river. By 1:45 am, on
the morning of July 6, the Advisory Committee received word by
telegraph that the barges had passed through the locks and were
on their way. An hour later the steam whistle at the electric
light works sounded the general alarm and crowds assembled along
the river bank and peered through the early morning fog for signs
of the barges. 19 Blowing its whistle all the while, the Edna
steamed down to meet the barges. The crowds followed the barges
but were stopped when they came to the fence surrounding the
mill. Realizing it was a choice between letting the Pinkertons,
and any non-union workers who might be on board, restart the
mill, or knocking down the fence and being accused of destroying
private property, the crowd chose the later and rushed to the
landing.
The Little Bill began maneuvering the barges to shore when
it passed under the railroad bridge (built on the same abutments
in use today) around 4:30 am. 20 Cut into the left bank of the
Monongahela just above the bridge, the landing consisted of a
flat narrow strip at the water's edge. A low bulkhead of wooden
piles stretched upstream from the bridge about 900 feet to the
far end of Open Hearth #1 (now bays 13, 14, and 15 of the
Structural Mill). A railroad siding gently descended in two
stages across the face of the 50 foot slag and ash embankment. A
cluster of structures, the Water Tower with its two stave and
hoop construction, and two unidentified brick buildings, stood at
the upstream end of the landing where the siding changed
direction. About 100 feet downstream from the Water Tower
cluster the rail spur passed in front of the exposed foundation
of the Pump House. The bridge crossed the river near the point
where the railroad siding reached the top of the bank. Adjacent
to the bridge stood a cluster of unidentified buildings. An half
hour after passing under the bridge, the Little Bill finished its
work and a gangplank was thrown onto the landing. The stage was
18Pittsburqh Times, July 4, 1892, p. 1 July 6, p. 1; Pittsburgh
Times, July 6, 1892, p. 1.
19Pittsburah Commercial Gazette, July 7, 1892, p. 1; Burgoyne,
p. 54.
20
Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette. July 7, 1892, p. 1.
11
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
now set. 21
Accounts very as to the precise details of what happened
next. Some of the crowd went down to the water's edge to meet
the barges. There was a pause and an exchange of words. Shots
rang out leaving several wounded on both sides. This first
engagement ended with the retreat of the workers to the top of
the bank and the Pinkertons to the interiors of the barges. Both
groups retreated with their casualties: the Little Bill took six
wounded guards upstream four miles to Port Perry where they were
put on a train to Pittsburgh, and several workers were taken to
doctors in Homestead. The workers took up positions behind piles
of steel I-beams along the bank and in and on the structures
which had commanding views of the barges. After the Little Bill
left with the wounded Pinkertons, the forces engaged a second
time. Neither group was able to dislodge the other and both
groups settled-in for an extended exchange of random fire. It
was probably during this exchange that John Morris, a pit man in
the open hearths, exposed himself at a window of the Pump House
and received at shot in the forehead that knocked him off a six
inch ledge and onto the pumps below. 22
The workers, who had been living under a siege mentality
since the lockout began, sought revenge for the deaths of their
fellow workers. Through-out the rest of the day the workers made
numerous futile attempts to break the standoff. Watched by
crowds who gathered on the approaches to the bridge23 , the
workers made innumerable attempts including bombarding the barges
with two small Civil War era cannon, sending a flaming car down
the siding, throwing dynamite, pumping oil on the river, and even
piping natural gas onto the barges. Sometime before noon, the
Little Bill returned from Port Perry but was driven off by heavy
gun fire when it sought to remove the barges. 24 Suffering from
the wound, heat, and smoke, the departure of the Little Bill left
the Pinkertons with little hope of escape as the workers
continued their efforts. In the early afternoon, a group of men
brought lunch to the battle site25 . Despite several efforts by
the Pinkertons to surrender, attempts to destroy the barges
21 Pittsburqh Commercial Gazette. July 7, p. 1.
^Pittsburgh Post. July 7, 1892, p. 1; Homestead Local News r
July 9, 1892, p. 3.
^Pittsburgh Press. July 7, 1982p. 1; Pittsburgh Commercial
Gazette. July 7, 1892, p. 1.
24Pittsburqh Press. July 7, 1892, p. 1; Pittsburgh Commercial
Gazette. July 7, 1892, p. 1.
25Burgoyne, p. 72.
12
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
continued late into the afternoon.
Throughout the battle, the Advisory Committee received
telegraph reports of events outside Homestead at its headquarters
in the Bost Building. The sheriff, who was turned back by
overwhelming numbers when he had visited Homestead earlier in the
day, had repeatedly appealed to the Governor to call out the
state militia to no avail. Legislation calling for an
investigation into the causes of the lockout was introduced in
the U.S. House of Representatives. Numerous messages of support
also came in. 26
About 4 pm, William Weihe, President of the Amalgamated
Association, and several other union officers arrived at the
battle site and tried to persuade the workers to let the sheriff
take the Pinkertons away. In the course of his speech to the
workers, Weihe was interrupted by a large group of union members
who walked from the Jones & Laughlin plant on Pittsburgh's South
Side to reinforce the Homestead workers. When the confusion
settled down, Hugh O'Donnell, Chair of the Advisory Committee,
spoke to the workers and was more successful. At this time, or
shortly thereafter, the Pinkertons raised another white flag. 27
After the Pinkertons were removed, the barges were looted and
burned. About fourteen hours after the barges passed under the
bridge, the Battle of Homestead was over. 28
The ordeal of the Pinkertons, however, was not. O'Donnell
and a committee went down to the barges to negotiate terms.
O'Donnell agreed to the Pinkerton's request for a guarantee of
safety and sought to take the Pinkertons through the crowd and
put them on a train to Pittsburgh. Once the Pinkertons were
disarmed, however, the crowd became an ugly mob and the
Pinkertons were forced to run a brutal gauntlet through the mill,
down Eighth Avenue (past the Bost Building) to a side street
(possibly McClure), and down the side street to the Homestead
lockup
a distance of about a mile. The lockup, located in the
rail yards of what is now the P&LE, could only hold about 30, so
the remainder were taken to the Fifth Avenue opera house29
between McClure and Ann Streets. Armed guards were posted to
protect the Pinkertons from further violence while they received
^Burgoyne, pp. 75-78.
27Pittsburgh Post, July 7, 1892, p. 1; Pittsburgh Times. July
7, 1892, p. 1.
^Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, July 7, 1892, p. 1; Pittsburgh
Press, July 7, 1892, p. 7.
^Demolished, along with 1,000 other buildings, to make way for
the WWII Defense Plant.
13
DRAFT:September 24, 1990
medical attention. 30 Around 1 am the next day, a special train
came from Pittsburgh with the Sheriff, President Weihe, and other
Amalgamated officers and took the Pinkertons to Pittsburgh.
With the departure of the Pinkertons, the Advisory Committee
reasserted its control of the community. Acting on a report form
one of his agents, Governor Pattison ordered the Pennsylvania
National Guard to Homestead on July 10. The full compliment of
8,000 guards arrived the next day. The company restarted the
mill with non-union labor under the protection of the militia.
Workers at Carnegie's mills in Pittsburgh, Beaver Falls, and
(briefly) Duquesne went out on sympathy strikes. Through
Republican Party officials Hugh O'Donnell unsuccessfully tried to
get Carnegie, who was in Scotland, to intervene. While this was
going on, the company brought charges of murder, conspiracy, and
state treason against several individual strikers and the
Advisory Committee. Eventually found not guilty on all counts,
the bail and legal costs exhausted the union's resources.
Counter charges against the company were not effective. On July
23, the anarchist Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate
Frick. While the attempt was in not tied to the union, it helped
turn public support away from the strikers. Discussions of a
boycott of Carnegie products by the American Federation of Labor
did not come to fruition, and by November 21 the workers voted to
end the strike.
The Homestead Strike was a major turning point in the labor
history of the American steel industry. Eminent labor historian
Philip S. Fonor summarizes it thus:
The Amalgamated Association continued to exist for
years after the Homestead Strike, but as an effective
organization it was shattered. The Carnegie Steel
Company dominated the industry, and set the pattern for
other mills. The defeat at Homestead not only meant
the end of unionism at the Carnegie plants, but lead to
the downfall of unionism in the entire industry. 31
This defeat lasted for four decades as it was not until the late
1930s that steelworkers were organized into a national union
under the auspices of the United Steel Workers of America.
Conversely the Homestead Strike was a victory for the steel
makers and the corporate capitalists who would follow. According
to noted labor historian David Brody,
Unencumbered, the steelmaster could base his labor
decisions on the objective criteria of what minimized his
30
Pittsburgh Post, July 7, 1892, p. 5
31 Fonor, p. 218
14
DRAFT;September 24, 1990
cost and maximized his profit. He could with impunity
manipulate the wage rate, step up the work, and extend the
twelve-hour day and the seven-day week. The antiunion
triumph completed economical steel manufacture. 32
9.[Bibliography]
10.[Geographical data]
The district boundaries include all known surviving resources
associated with the Battle of Homestead and the Pinkerton
Landing. The boundary for the Bost building follows the property
line. The boundary for the landing site includes the river bank
and associated structures adjacent to it. The amount of river
bank needed to include the landing site preserved by the
retaining wall was determined by contemporary photographs and
descriptions.
11. Mark M. Brown, Historian / Ron Kaplan, Intern
Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service
November 1990
(412) 464-0789
303 E. 8th Ave
Homestead, PA
15120
[Boundary Description:]
^David Brody.
York: 1969): 78.
Steelworkers in America; The Nonunion Era. (New
15