Episode 6 - Carnegie's Inferno: The Homestead Strike

Behind the grand libraries and concert halls lies the blood and fire of Homestead, Pennsylvania. In 1892, the celebrated philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and his ruthless chairman, Henry Clay Frick, decided to break the steelworkers' union at their flagship mill. This episode is an unflinching look at the Homestead Strike, a violent and pivotal conflict that exposed the brutal hypocrisy at the heart of Carnegie's empire. It was a war waged against the very people whose labor had built his fortune.

While Carnegie vacationed in a remote Scottish castle, Frick fortified the mill with barbed wire, sniper towers, and hired the private Pinkerton army to protect the strikebreakers. We recount the bloody 12-hour battle that erupted when the townspeople fought the Pinkertons on the banks of the Monongahela River, resulting in multiple deaths and a declaration of martial law. The incident revealed that Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" did not extend to fair wages or the right to organize for his own workers. The man who preached social harmony presided over one of the ugliest labor disputes in American history.

The strike was ultimately crushed, the union was broken, and wages were slashed. Carnegie’s reputation was forever stained, proving that his immense fortune was built not just on steel, but on the subjugation of his labor force. This is the story of the fire that forged a billion-dollar legacy.