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Homestead Strike Story on Air Tonight |
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Tonight at 10 p.m. (9 CDT), The History Channel will air an hour-long documentary on “The Homestead Strike of 1892.” The documentary, narrated by Martin Sheen, is part of the “10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America” series.
The show tells the story of the fierce battle waged by members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers against the tyranny of Andrew Carnegie and his partner Henry Clay Frick at Carnegie’s premier steel mill outside Pittsburgh. When contract talks with the union broke down in 1892, Carnegie shut down the mill and told the workers to choose between their jobs and their union. The workers voted to strike. Frick had a 10-foot-tall fence erected around the mill so replacement workers could be brought in without interference from union members. On July 5, when a private army of 300 Pinkertons arrived to do Carnegie and Frick’s bidding, the townspeople took arms and a 12-hour gun battle erupted, leaving deaths on both sides and the Pinkertons in retreat.
Briefly, the workers felt they had reclaimed ownership of their jobs and equal footing with the mill owners. But that was before a state militia of 8,500 swept in to secure the mill for Carnegie and Frick. The union was broken and a chasm opened between workers and owners nationwide.
“You can’t tell the story of American history without telling the story of labor,” says the show’s director, Rory Kennedy. “And this day, when the workers decided they were going to rise up against one of the most powerful people in America, tells an important part of that story.”
Tune in and check it out.
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