The River Ran Red: Homestead 1892 (Regional) - Softcover

Demarest, David P.; Weingartner, Fannia; Montgomery, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822954788 ISBN 13: 9780822954781

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992

Synopsis

The violence that erupted at Carnegie Steel's giant Homestead mill near Pittsburgh on July 6. 1892, caused a congressional investigation and trials for treason, motivated a nearly successful assassination attempt on Frick, contributed to the defeat of President Benjamin Harrison for a second term, and changed the course of the American labor movement.

"The River Ran Red" commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Homestead strike of 1892. Instead of retelling the story of the strike, it recreates the events of that summer in excerpts from contemporary newspapers and magazines, reproductions of pen-and-ink sketches and photographs made on the scene, passages from the congressional investigation that resulted from the strike, first-hand accounts by observers and participants, and poems, songs, and sermons from across the country. Contributions by outstanding scholars provide the context for understanding the social and cultural aspects of the strike, as well as its violence.

"The River Ran Red" is the collaboration of a team of writers, archivists, and historians, including Joseph Frazier Wall, who writes of the role of Andrew Carnegie at Homestead, and David Montgomery, who considers the significance of the Homestead Strike for the present. The book is both readable and richly illustrated. It recalls public and personal reactions to an event in our history who's reverberations can still be felt today.

About this title

About the Author

David P. Demarest Jr. teaches English at Carnegie Mellon University.

Reviews

July 6, 1992 will mark the 100th anniversary of the most significant labor-management confrontation in U.S. history: the Homestead Strike. In commemoration of this industrial crisis, Demarest (Carnegie-Mellon) and eight coeditors have produced an anthology of events surrounding the conflict. The numerous illustrations include photographs, cartoons, and period engravings. The text, which includes excerpts from magazine and newspaper articles, Congressional testimony, and speeches and memoranda, reveals the viewpoints of some major players: industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, unionist John McLuckie, and anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Although this anthology contains a wealth of information, it lacks an index to guide the reader to specific material in the text. Recommended for public libraries and for those who wish to read a dramatic portrayal of the Homestead Strike. Krause (Univ. of British Columbia) provides a more scholarly treatment, examining the strike in terms of broader issues confronting the Gilded Age. He focuses on the labor-management disputes of the era, which represented the never-ending "conflict between the pursuit of private interest and the defense of the common good." Individuals like Carnegie amassed material wealth at the expense of common laborers who wanted only decent wages and security for their families. Krause suggests that the Homestead lockout revealed the difficulty of reconciling America's vision of democracy for all with the reality of material progress restricted to a fortunate few. Moreover, the author questions whether this "dilemma" will ever be reconciled. An important contribution to the study of American history; highly recommended for research library collections.
- B.A. Kremer, Johns Hopkins Univ. Libs., Baltimore
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822954788
• ISBN 13: 9780822954781
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244