page_title: Pinkerton (detective agency)
section_title: Homestead Strike
hierarchical_section_title: Pinkerton (detective agency) / Homestead Strike
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a portion of the typed and signed copy of the letter sent to Andrew Carnegie describing the plans and munitions that will be on the barges when the Pinkertons arrive to confront the strikers in Homestead. The sherrif’s department is also described. The date of the letter is July 4, 1892. Caption: "Tomorrow night, about 11 oclock, 300 Watchmen obtained from Pinkerton, will leave the cars at Bellvue Station on the Fort Wayne Road, and take passage on two barges, and two boats that will be there ready to receive them. They will go at once to Homestead, reaching there, we hope, about three or four oclock on the morning of the 6th. The barges are well fitted up, and well provisioned, as are also the Boats. The Boats contain the uniforms, the arms, the ammunition, etc." The highly detailed, digitized and entire copy of this letter is available from the University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center, The University of Pittsburgh Library System and can be viewed here: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=ascead;type=simple;q1=Henry%20Clay%20Frick;rgn=Entire%20Finding%20Aid;size=25;view=reslist;subview=standard;cc=ascead;sort=occur;start=1;didno=US-PPiU-ais200206;focusrgn=contentslist;byte=29484518 The image is part of the The Henry Clay Frick Business Collection containing Fricks business records. The copyrights of the items have expired. The catalog describing the contents of the collection can be accessed here: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=ascead;type=simple;q1=Henry%20Clay%20Frick;rgn=Entire%20Finding%20Aid;size=25;view=reslist;subview=standard;cc=ascead;sort=occur;start=1;didno=US-PPiU-ais200206;focusrgn=contentslist;byte=29484518 This image is provided by the Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program at the University of Pittsburgh.
context_page_description: Pinkerton, founded as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, is a private security guard and detective agency established in the United States by Scotsman Allan Pinkerton in 1850 and currently a subsidiary of Securitas AB. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War. Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency hired women and minorities from its founding, a practice uncommon at the time. Pinkerton was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world at the height of its power.
  During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and recruit goon squads to intimidate workers.
context_section_description: On July 6, 1892, during the Homestead Strike, 300 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago were called in by Carnegie Steel's Henry Clay Frick to protect the Pittsburgh-area mill and strikebreakers. This resulted in a firefight and siege in which 16 men were killed, and 23 others were wounded. To restore order, two brigades of the Pennsylvania militia were called out by the Governor.
  As a legacy of the Pinkertons' involvement, a bridge connecting the nearby Pittsburgh suburbs of Munhall and Rankin was named Pinkerton's Landing Bridge.
caption: Frick's letter describing the plans and munitions that will be on the barges when the Pinkertons arrive to confront the strikers in Homestead
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