The Homestead Strike
While Andrew Carnegie is widely viewed as a manifestation of the American dream--a truly self-made man, a contributor to the war effort, and an outstanding patriot, he still had his faults. One of them was the brutal manner with which he treated his workers.
A strike in 1889 had won the steelworkers a favorable three-year contract. However, by 1892 Andrew Carnegie was determined to increase efficiency. In order to do this, his plant manager stepped up production demands, and when the steelworkers refused to accept the new conditions, the manager began locking the workers out of the plant.
Unhappy with these new conditions, the union members voted overwhelmingly to strike. However, Carnegie's manager requested for 300 armed guards called "Pinkertons"... their name doesn't even sound intimidating. These guards were overwhelmed by the mostly armed mob of ten thousand strikers, and were forced to run a gauntlet through the crowd.
After this defeat, Carnegie wasn't able to gain local support. However, using his connections, he influenced the sheriff to request 8,000 militia from Pennsylvania. Under their protection, the company was able to get the steel factory running again.
After this incident, Carnegie's manager's actions gained public empathy for the workers. This public sentiment disappeared, however, once someone attempted to take his life.
Taking advantage of the situation, the company arrested more than a hundred strikers under the pretext of attempted murder. Even though many of these workers were eventually cleared of suspicion and released, their cases cost the union a good deal of money, and the strike ended after that.
In the end, Carnegie was able to prolong the hours and decrease the wages of his workers. Carnegie's actions illustrate another example of the common people of America being taken advantage of.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homestead-strike
This post gave a greater insight into the power that Andrew Carnegie possessed. I found the part about how Carnegie was able to influence the Sheriff to be the most interesting because it gave evidence to the uneven nature of power and wealth in America at the time. I did more research into Carnegie's power and wealth, which lead me to find out that he was also generous with his money, donating around $350 million dollars to a variety of different causes.
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/andrew-carnegie
This post seemed brought back the idea of something we talked about in class today. The Irony of how Carnegie was a self made man and how he would donate significant amounts of money towards building FREE libraries and his own University to benefit the people. According to today's lesson, Carnegie used his local library very consistently in order to educate himself in his own manner. This access to education brought him knowledge to eventually build his own empire and wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe Iron part about this, is that Carnegie supports the idea of working to the top, but immediately shuts down his own workers that are trying to better their lives with this strike. by demanding for better wages and to keep their jobs.
I like how you wrote this post because it represented the amount of power Carnegie had. You can also add a bit about his early life so the reader can get some background information on how Carnegie became so powerful. For example, he worked in a factory as a child and eventually made his way to work on the railroads where he was promoted superintendent. After this he became dedicated to the steel industry, and made himself one of the wealthiest men in his century. Overall, great job on your blog and your explanations about Carnegie's workers reactions to the minimal wages and long days proposed by Carnegie.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.biography.com/business-figure/andrew-carnegie
I enjoyed this post because it demonstrated how influential Carnegie truly was on others, and the conveniences his connections enabled. I find it astonishing that a steel industrialist was able to gain power to the point of influencing people like sheriffs. This also reminds me of what we learned in class about J.P. Morgan and how his empire gave him the ability to sway the President himself.
ReplyDeleteI think this post is a great example of the Gilded Age because it reflects the extreme gap of power between laborers and business owners. Before the Homestead Strike, the laborers had fairly good working conditions and wages as mentioned in the favorable three-year contract. However, even though Carnegie already was very wealthy and had a lot of power, to improve efficiency he cut the wages of his workers. This shows that during this age a lot of businesses were focused on gaining as much power and they could do so by lowering the salaries of their workers. In fact, when the workers union rejected this wage cut, they were locked out and barbed-wire-topped fences were put up. After the strike, the steel mill went back to work and all the workers were simply replaced.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike
This post gave great insight into the amount of power wealthy corporation owners had over the economy. Being able to control and arrest factory workers easily shows the amount of power the big business owners had. Another example of this can be seen in the election of 1896. Many big businesses were in danger because of the possible conversion from gold standard to the gold/silver conversion. Because of this danger, the owners of these big businesses told their workers to vote for the republican side to keep their jobs, sort of threatening them to vote for the gold standard. This gave owners immense power as they could control their workers vote and influence them to vote for one particular party to save themselves.
ReplyDeleteSource:
https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1896
Your blog posts are always very interesting; I especially enjoyed the insight you provided on the soldiers. I wonder, had the company not been affiliated with Carnegie, whether the manager would still be able to request and receive 300 armed soldiers. I would assume not, since Carnegie was a very influential figure that governing powers tended to favor in order to receive his donations. Though I can't find an example of a strike where a less influential company manager has been denied troops, in numerous other strikes influential figures have had immense power in acquiring troops for strikes. In the Railroad Strike of 1877, West Virginia Governor Henry M. Mathews requested and received federal troops to suppress the strikers.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Railroad-Strike-of-1877