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Primary sourceNewspaper article16 July 1892

The Homestead Riot

W. P. Snyder · 16 July 1892

An 1892 Harper's Weekly engraving of the violent clash between strikers and Pinkerton guards at Carnegie's Homestead steel works.

Depicts the violent 1892 strike at Carnegie's Homestead steel works, the event that most damaged his reputation.

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Black-and-white page from Harper's Weekly, July 16, 1892, showing a wood engraving titled The Homestead Riot. Armed men in bowler hats and uniforms stand in a crowd near barges, with smoke rising behind a large building. Men in the foreground, one with a bandaged head, walk away from the scene.
The Homestead Riot, drawn by W. P. Snyder after a photograph by Dabbs, Harper's Weekly, 16 July 1892. Library of Congress.

About this source

What it is

This wood engraving, titled The Homestead Riot, was drawn by W. P. Snyder after a photograph by Dabbs of Pittsburgh, and published in Harper's Weekly on 16 July 1892. It is held by the Library of Congress.

Why it matters

It shows the violent 1892 clash between striking steelworkers and armed Pinkerton guards at the Homestead works, part of Carnegie's steel empire, which left workers and guards dead and became a national scandal. Carnegie, in Scotland at the time, distanced himself from the violence, and the episode permanently shadowed his reputation as a philanthropist.

Look closer

  • What does the image choose to show, and what does it leave out?
  • Why might an artist base an engraving on a photograph rather than draw from life?
  • How might Carnegie's absence from the scene have shaped public reaction?

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