A Century Passing: Carnegie, Steel and the Fate of Homestead

In A Century Passing, Richard Krooth examines one of the great entrepreneurs of the late 19th century, documenting his epic, egregious struggle to accumulate wealth and power, regardless of the toll in human misery and fiber. Andrew Carnegie had well positioned himself financially and came to exercise dominance in the 19th century steel industry. By careful planning to introduce the latest technical inventions, taking away the skills of his elite workers and impoverishing the rest, he pressured his labor force into the seminal strike at his Homestead works in 1892. The leaders of the Homestead's craft union responded militantly, going beyond the pale of union tradition. Victorious, Carnegie not only subserviated his labor force and made them fearful of losing their jobs, he initiated a new stage of "proletarianization" in his company-ruled towns, laying the foundation for keeping labor on tap over the next 100 years.