1889: Johnstown Flood
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which was blamed for the
Johnstown Flood that killed 2,209 people in 1889.
At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner
Henry Clay Frick had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The charter members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were: Benjamin Ruff; T. H. Sweat; Charles J. Clarke; Thomas Clark; Walter F. Fundenberg; Howard Hartley; Henry C. Yeager; J. B. White; Henry Clay Frick; E. A. Myers; C. C. Hussey; D. R. Ewer; C. A. Carpenter; W. L. Dunn; W. L. McClintock; and A. V. Holmes.
The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend,
Andrew Mellon, his attorneys
Philander Knox and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner Andrew Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the
South Fork Dam was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Less than 20 miles downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown, and Carnegie Steel's chief competitor (from whom Carnegie had hired away steelmaking expert Bill Jones), the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, which boasted the world's largest annual steel production.
Poor maintenance, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889 resulting in twenty million tons of water to sweep down the valley causing the
Johnstown Flood. When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.
Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year and a half. By that time, Carnegie's steel production had outstripped Cambria's. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and houses the Flood Museum.
1892: Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike
The
Homestead Strike was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in
Homestead, Pennsylvania, and grew out of a dispute between the National Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States and the Carnegie Steel Company.
Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked. In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner
Henry Clay Frick. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sensibilities.
After a recent increase in profits by 60%, the company refused to raise worker's pay by more than 30%. When some of the workers demanded the full 60%, management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "
lockout" by management and not a "
strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing labor rights movement, strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and
Pinkerton agents to safeguard them.
On 6 July, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men—seven strikers and three Pinkertons—were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor
Robert Pattison ordered two brigades of state militia to the strike site. Then, allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons,
anarchist Alexander Berkman shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding Frick. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie."
[31][32] Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States. However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.
