Homestead Strike

Paul Kahan teaches history at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. For more information, visit his website at www.paulkahan.com.

• Introduction. 1. Carnegie and Frick 2. American Labor History, 1600-1892 3. Lead-Up to the Strike 4. The Lockout and Strike 5. Aftermath 6. Legacy and Conclusion. Documents.

1. Anthony DeStefanis, OtterbeinI like that the book promises a narrative on Homestead that connects it to larger issues in the history of the nineteenth century and will also include some primary sources. There are lots of primary source readers that take this approach (the Bedford history and culture series, for instance), but it seems that you are going to spend more time and space on the narrative before you get to the primary sources.I think making the connections between Homestead and what was happening more broadly in the economy, business, and the lives of working-class people will be particularly useful in the classroom. If done right, I think this book could have a very long shelf life and could be very successful. Homestead is an event that many professors touch on in the courses I listed in #1 above. These courses are taught at many colleges and universities, and thus you will have a large built-in audience. You will have a good chance to make this book a mainstay in these courses if it is accessible, readable, and compelling. 2. David Anderson, Louisiana TechI do believe a market exists at the university level for this book if it fits my needs, i.e., it uses a single event to advance broad claims about a particular era or historical development, in this case, the Gilded Age class conflict and the historical development of new technologies, new forms of business organization, and new political ideologies.I would also agree with the author that a market for this book potentially exists at the numerous historical sites and museums that have some connection to the Homestead Strike, although must confess to having no knowledge about the yearly attendance at those sites.What I find most appealing about this proposal is the author’s stated goal of providing college-level history professors with a "concise narrative of the Homestead Strike (with accompanying primary documents)" and one that would serve as a important supplemental text for a variety of U.S. History courses. 3. Paul Krause, University of British ColumbiaApproaching the lockout as a problem in collective and public memory is a way to link it to the present – and to ask all sorts of questions about the corporate order, as it emerged and triumphed in the Gilded Age, and as it has been reconstituted in our own. One question would of course take up labor and unions.