Reconstruction, Expansion, and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 451,600 in all. At the same time Haymarket exploded, workers in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin stared down 250 National Guardsmen as they fought for an 8-hour
day. What became known as the Bay View Massacre ended on May 5th, 1886
with seven dead, one of whom was a 13-year old boy. The strike had begun
on May 1st because Milwaukee had passed an 8-hour bill but it had no pen-
alty for employers who violated the law. The demonstration was initially
peaceful, but as the bosses and politicians became alarmed at the growing
number of strikers and marchers, conditions turned violent. By May 3rd,
approximately 12,000 strikers had managed to close down all factories in the
area except one: The North Chicago Railroad Rolling Mills Steel Foundry
along the shores of Lake Michigan in the Bay View area of Milwaukee. Some
1,500 marchers headed toward Bay View chanting, “Eight hours, everyone
must strike, onto the mills!” The governor ordered 250 National Guardsmen
to “shoot to kill.” Marchers approached the mill, the militia fired, people
began to flee, and, in the end, the National Guard killed 7, including the teen-
ager.
By the early 1890s, labor was on the ropes, and events in Homestead,
Pennsylvania and Pullman, Illinois put the final nail in the coffin of labor orga-
nization in the late 19th century. At Homestead, members of the relatively
influential Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA), which
included 3800 employees, challenged one of the country’s most powerful
industrial corporations, the Carnegie Steel Company at the Homestead Steels
Works in Pittsburgh. The AA had made some gains for workers, including an
agreement on hiring new employees and the ability to regulate work pace.
The local supervisor of the Homestead factory Henry Clay Frick and
Carnegie, however, saw those gains as threats to their power. In 1892,
Carnegie accordingly decided that the Homestead Steel Works would be a
nonunion factory. To enforce the new rule, Frick fired all workers, surround-
ed the factory with barbed wire fencing to keep them out, and ordered the
construction of barracks to house strikebreakers. Only workers who pledged
not to join the union were allowed back to work.
All workers, including the unskilled nonunion members, blockaded the
factory. Members of the local community came out to support organized
labor, too. Private security forces working for the Pinkertons arrived by water
and the strikers, once warned, ambushed their barge. That day, July 6th, 1892,
the armed strikers confronted the 300 Pinkertons, and during the confronta-