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The River Ran Red: Homestead 1892
The violence that erupted at Carnegie Steel's giant Homestead mill near Pittsburgh on July 6. 1892, caused a congressional investigation and trials for treason, motivated a nearly successful assassination attempt on Frick, contributed to the defeat of President Benjamin Harrison for a second term, and changed the course of the American labor movement.
"The River Ran Red" commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Homestead strike of 1892. Instead of retelling the story of the strike, it recreates the events of that summer in excerpts from contemporary newspapers and magazines, reproductions of pen-and-ink sketches and photographs made on the scene, passages from the congressional investigation that resulted from the strike, first-hand accounts by observers and participants, and poems, songs, and sermons from across the country. Contributions by outstanding scholars provide the context for understanding the social and cultural aspects of the strike, as well as its violence.
"The River Ran Red" is the collaboration of a team of writers, archivists, and historians, including Joseph Frazier Wall, who writes of the role of Andrew Carnegie at Homestead, and David Montgomery, who considers the significance of the Homestead Strike for the present. The book is both readable and richly illustrated. It recalls public and personal reactions to an event in our history who's reverberations can still be felt today.
"The River Ran Red" commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Homestead strike of 1892. Instead of retelling the story of the strike, it recreates the events of that summer in excerpts from contemporary newspapers and magazines, reproductions of pen-and-ink sketches and photographs made on the scene, passages from the congressional investigation that resulted from the strike, first-hand accounts by observers and participants, and poems, songs, and sermons from across the country. Contributions by outstanding scholars provide the context for understanding the social and cultural aspects of the strike, as well as its violence.
"The River Ran Red" is the collaboration of a team of writers, archivists, and historians, including Joseph Frazier Wall, who writes of the role of Andrew Carnegie at Homestead, and David Montgomery, who considers the significance of the Homestead Strike for the present. The book is both readable and richly illustrated. It recalls public and personal reactions to an event in our history who's reverberations can still be felt today.
- GenresHistory
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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February 18, 2018
Review title: Soul compelling
My review title is taken from a newspaper story reporting on the funeral of one of the labor victims of the Battle of Homestead. The book title comes from an anonymous ballad written just days after the battle:
These powerful phrases capture perfectly the depth and breadth of the impact of that battle that ended the war against labor. Capital has not been so challenged since.
The River Runs Red is a collection of contemporary accounts and images from newspapers, court documents, and company records that document the events before, during, and after the Battle of Homestead, which in 1892 shut down the largest and most technically advanced steel mill in the world when owner Andrew Carnegie locked out the workers, manager Henry Frick brought in Pinkerton private security, and the workers defended their lives and jobs. Counts and accounts vary, but probably 12 men died that day, three Pinkerton guards and nine Homestead steel workers.
Editor David P. Demarest, Jr. and team of editors and researchers, on the 100th anniversary of the events, assembled an excellent collection of material showing the color and culture of the local community and the perceptions and politics of national business, labor, and government organizations. The result is bound together by sidebars of modern commentary from the editors which bridge and provide just the right amount of context between the individual documents, and the finished product provides both thrilling immediacy and thought provoking history.
As I have read more about Homestead, first in the broader context of American history of the time, and then in the context of the business partnership between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick, and now in the words of contemporary participants and modern sidebars in this book, I have come to realize that Homestead was less about evil capitalists and rabble rousing unions and more about rapidly changing technology that was driving changes in workplace conditions, tools, and processes, and the struggle was over who would control both the changes and the financial rewards of the increasing productivity they enabled. This realization opens up a whole new way to see this 150-year old history and makes it very relevant to the workplace changes being driven by technology today. Will we see such bitter conflicts between labor and capital as we continue the ever accelerating transition to workplace automation and robotics? This history tells us we may, although this history also tells us that capital and financial outcomes have already won, as we have seen organized labor action for wages and jobs almost disappear from the workplace, and as we have watched job disappear overseas to maintain the all important current quarter profits at the cost of jobs. It is a sobering thought.
Some may point to the middle decades of the 20th century as the high water era for trade unionism and victories for labor over ownership in the jobs marketplace. But make no mistake. The effort of labor to assert equality with ownership was literally shot dead in the Battle of Homestead, never to rise again. This quote from the sidebar by a Duquesne University constitutional law professor succinctly defines what happened at Homestead:
And as the contemporary accounts and research in company archives prove, that is exactly what happened, with the full support of the law, the United States and Pennsylvania governments, and military force. Those contemporaries and historians who refer to Homestead as a strike are wrong; it was a lockout with the intent to destroy labor. And it worked.
On the other side, partly in response to violence against labor like Homestead in the late 19th century, modern national and state governments have built into law and regulation many of the basic protections sought by those early labor unions. The rule of law is in many cases an able safeguard of physical, financial, and social health. 19th century laissez-faire liberalism saw this kind of government participation in the world of business and labor as socialist, but in the course of the years since, and after many battles in the streets, the courts, and the polling places, we have come to accept it as necessary government protection of its citizens to ensure physical, financial, and social security for the majority.
Both my father and my father in law spent their working careers in skilled labor protected by strong labor unions, and as a young confident white collar worker I often argued with them that the need for unions had past. As an aging worker in the 21st century I have seen the accelerating changes in workplace conditions, tools, and processes threaten the American dream for both experienced and new employees now just as in 1892 as business and labor try to navigate those changing conditions. I am humbled by the realization that workers need representation and forced to face my fears about the workplace future for me and my children. Read The River Ran Red and learn why Homestead mattered then and now and consider how it may affect you.
My review title is taken from a newspaper story reporting on the funeral of one of the labor victims of the Battle of Homestead. The book title comes from an anonymous ballad written just days after the battle:
But oh it was awful, that day at Homestead,
When the river ran red on its way to the sea,
When brave men were falling and women were weeping,
And Riot was King of the land of the free! (p. 120)
These powerful phrases capture perfectly the depth and breadth of the impact of that battle that ended the war against labor. Capital has not been so challenged since.
The River Runs Red is a collection of contemporary accounts and images from newspapers, court documents, and company records that document the events before, during, and after the Battle of Homestead, which in 1892 shut down the largest and most technically advanced steel mill in the world when owner Andrew Carnegie locked out the workers, manager Henry Frick brought in Pinkerton private security, and the workers defended their lives and jobs. Counts and accounts vary, but probably 12 men died that day, three Pinkerton guards and nine Homestead steel workers.
Editor David P. Demarest, Jr. and team of editors and researchers, on the 100th anniversary of the events, assembled an excellent collection of material showing the color and culture of the local community and the perceptions and politics of national business, labor, and government organizations. The result is bound together by sidebars of modern commentary from the editors which bridge and provide just the right amount of context between the individual documents, and the finished product provides both thrilling immediacy and thought provoking history.
As I have read more about Homestead, first in the broader context of American history of the time, and then in the context of the business partnership between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick, and now in the words of contemporary participants and modern sidebars in this book, I have come to realize that Homestead was less about evil capitalists and rabble rousing unions and more about rapidly changing technology that was driving changes in workplace conditions, tools, and processes, and the struggle was over who would control both the changes and the financial rewards of the increasing productivity they enabled. This realization opens up a whole new way to see this 150-year old history and makes it very relevant to the workplace changes being driven by technology today. Will we see such bitter conflicts between labor and capital as we continue the ever accelerating transition to workplace automation and robotics? This history tells us we may, although this history also tells us that capital and financial outcomes have already won, as we have seen organized labor action for wages and jobs almost disappear from the workplace, and as we have watched job disappear overseas to maintain the all important current quarter profits at the cost of jobs. It is a sobering thought.
Some may point to the middle decades of the 20th century as the high water era for trade unionism and victories for labor over ownership in the jobs marketplace. But make no mistake. The effort of labor to assert equality with ownership was literally shot dead in the Battle of Homestead, never to rise again. This quote from the sidebar by a Duquesne University constitutional law professor succinctly defines what happened at Homestead:
The Carnegie officials did not plan to engage in good-faith bargaining, and wages were of only secondary importance. The company's plan was to create the appearance of bargaining, force the talks to fail, lock-out the workers, raise its own private army, clothe the troops with public authority, occupy the Homestead works, import nonunion workers under cover of law, destroy the Amalgamated [labor union], and dictate terms to the workers. (p. 192)
And as the contemporary accounts and research in company archives prove, that is exactly what happened, with the full support of the law, the United States and Pennsylvania governments, and military force. Those contemporaries and historians who refer to Homestead as a strike are wrong; it was a lockout with the intent to destroy labor. And it worked.
On the other side, partly in response to violence against labor like Homestead in the late 19th century, modern national and state governments have built into law and regulation many of the basic protections sought by those early labor unions. The rule of law is in many cases an able safeguard of physical, financial, and social health. 19th century laissez-faire liberalism saw this kind of government participation in the world of business and labor as socialist, but in the course of the years since, and after many battles in the streets, the courts, and the polling places, we have come to accept it as necessary government protection of its citizens to ensure physical, financial, and social security for the majority.
Both my father and my father in law spent their working careers in skilled labor protected by strong labor unions, and as a young confident white collar worker I often argued with them that the need for unions had past. As an aging worker in the 21st century I have seen the accelerating changes in workplace conditions, tools, and processes threaten the American dream for both experienced and new employees now just as in 1892 as business and labor try to navigate those changing conditions. I am humbled by the realization that workers need representation and forced to face my fears about the workplace future for me and my children. Read The River Ran Red and learn why Homestead mattered then and now and consider how it may affect you.
January 28, 2013
For a researcher this book is an amazing piece of work. It brings together articles, photos, and drawings from a large variety of historical sources to tell the story of the Homestead Strike.
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