The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike which began on this day in 1892, culminating in a battle between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and private security forces of the Carnegie Steel Company.

Unlike earlier strikes in U.S. history, such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Homestead Strike was organized and purposeful, a sign of how labor agitation would develop in the modern era.

In order to break the union at the Carnegie Steel Factory, Henry Clay Frick locked union workers out of the factory on June 28th. On July 1st, thousands of workers, skilled and non-skilled, went on strike.

Frick hired the Pinkerton Agency to guard strikebreakers brought in via barge (the factory was on a river), but strikers patrolled a ten-mile stretch of the river to prevent them from making it to the factory.

On July 6th, the Pinkertons attempted to land under cover of darkness around four in the morning, however thousands of striking workers and sympathizers were waiting for them on the riverbank. When the agents tried to land, gunfire erupted, killing four people and injuring twenty-three on both sides. The Pinkertons surrendered, and many were beaten unconscious after leaving the boat.

The strike was forcibly put down by state militia, resulting in a defeat for the workers. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers collapsed, and its workers returned in August.

For his role in breaking the union, anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.