THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE IN 1892 REVISITED: LABOR DISPUTES, CORPORATIONS, AND POLITICAL MACHINES IN THE GILDED AGE

Abstract

The Homestead strike of 1892 was a pivotal event in American labor history. It demonstrated the explosive collision between workers and profit-minded industrialists to the public and politicians. This event also amply demonstrated the extreme lack of legal protection of labor rights in the United States in the late nineteenth Century, the tilting of the scales of government in favor of wealthy industrialists, and the dire consequences they could lead to. The event has helped update and improve the legal framework since then.