People died or were injured from explosions, burnings, asphyxiation, electric shocks, falls, crushing, etc. In 1889 the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers organized to seek higher wages and better conditions for steel workers. In that same year the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers achieved a three-year contract from Andrew Carnegie, the steel owner. Nearing the end of the contract, the union began negotiations to renew it. In response to the workers union, Andrew Carnegie formed an association of manufacturers. Henry Clay Frick was a famous union buster, and had just finished dissolving a union in the coke fields when Carnegie gave him the position of being in charge at Homestead. Negotiations began in 1892. Steel prices had greatly increased and the union asked for a raise. Frick responded by cutting wages. Negotiations continued and Frick started building high fences around the mill, cutting gun slits in it, and topping it with barbed wire. Soon after the men learned of his plan to smash the union, they were left with a proposition: settle on his terms in one month, or the company would stop dealing with the union. Angered by his inflexibility, the workers held a mock public hanging of Frick. Using this as an excuse, he shut down the mill, and locked the workers out two days before the end of the contract. Frick quickly hired as many scabs as he could and brought in 300 Pinkerton guards to get them through the picket line and protect the plant. What was to happen in the next thirteen hours is considered one of the bloodiest battles in American Labor history. .
It started very early in the morning when some of the workers sighted two barges of Pinkertons a mile below Homestead. Ten thousand men, women, and children rushed to the riverbank. When the Pinkertons disembarked from the boats, they saw hordes of men holding carbines, rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers, clubs, and stones.
