Hugh "Hughey" O'Donnell (c. 1869-19??) was an American steel mill worker and labor leader. He is best remembered as the chairman of the Homestead Strike Advisory Committee during the Homestead Steel Strike of July 1892.

Biography

Early years

Hugh O'Donnell came to work at the

Carnegie Steel Company Carnegie Steel Company was a steel-producing company primarily created by Andrew Carnegie and several close associates to manage businesses at steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century. The company was form ...

works at

Homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in 1886, at the age of 17.O'Donnell testimony to the House Judiciary Committee
''Investigation of the Employment of Pinkerton Detectives in Connection with the Labor Troubles at Homestead, PA.''
Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1892; pp. 86-87. After 6 months in the sheet metal mill he moved to the Homestead works' mill which produced 119-inch steel plate, in which he worked as a heater. O'Donnell joined the

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) was an American labor union formed in 1876 to represent iron and steel workers. It partnered with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee of the CIO, in November 1935. Both organizations di ...

and was a member of that organization's Lodge No. 125. At the time of the Homestead labor dispute, O'Donnell was employed as a mill worker, and not as a professional

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

functionary.

Leadership of the Homestead strike

O'Donnell was named chairman of the Advisory Committee, the workers' organization in charge of coordination of the strike.Paul Krause, ''The Battle for Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992; pg. 16. In this capacity he had cautioned against violence and trespassing upon company property in an attempt to keep the company from availing itself of judicial injunction or the seizing of the moral high ground.Krause, ''The Battle for Homestead,'' pg. 17. The Advisory Committee established its headquarters on the third floor of the Bost Building, located at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Heisel Street in Homestead.Krause, ''The Battle for Homestead,'' pg. 21.

Events of July 6

At 10:30 pm on July 5, 1892, some 300 employees of the

Pinkerton National Detective Agency Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton ...

arrived by rail at

Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to: Placenames Australia * Bellevue, Western Australia * Bellevue Hill, New South Wales * Bellevue, Queensland * Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales Canada ...

, about five miles south of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River.Krause, ''The Battle for Homestead,'' pg. 15. These were put aboard two specially equipped barges, laden with 300 pistols and 250

Winchester rifle Winchester rifle is a comprehensive term describing a series of lever action repeating rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Developed from the 1860 Henry rifle, Winchester rifles were among the earliest repeaters. The Mo ...

s, and pulled by

tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, su ...

up the river to Homestead. Strike leaders, who assigned lookouts to keep a watch along rivers and rail routes, were apprised by telegram at 2:30 am of July 6 that barges had departed for the steel works and ten minutes later a warning alarm was sounded, echoed by whistles throughout the town. Chaos ensued and O'Donnell immediately lost control of the defense of the steelworks, which was spontaneously led by residents of Homestead. Armed strikers assembled at the steelworks and shots were fired at the tugboat pulling the barges, one of which shattered a window in the pilothouse. Some of those coming forward in impromptu leadership roles included Margaret Finch, the feisty widow of a steelworker who operated the Rolling Mill House saloon, English immigrant laborer William Foy, and open-hearth skilled worker Anthony Soulier. As dawn began to break at 4:00 am, a crowd had gathered along the riverbank next to a barbed wire fence which ran from the plant to the river, which had been erected by the company some weeks earlier. The barges were pushed ashore at 4:30, to a cascade of angry shouts and a hail of stones, many of which were thrown by the hundreds of wives of strikers who had assembled.

Gangplank A gangway is a narrow passage that joins the quarterdeck to the forecastle of a sailing ship. The term is also extended to mean the narrow passages used to board or disembark ships. Modern shipping uses gangways to embark and disembark passeng ...

s were lowered and William Foy and Capt. Frederick H. Heinde, commander of the Pinkerton landing operation, tensely faced off amidst mutual threats.Krause, ''The Battle for Homestead,'' pg. 19. A fracas erupted, with clubs wielded and shots were fired, with both Foy and Heinde hit by bullets. The Pinkertons began firing their rifles repeatedly into the crowd, with armed strikers answering in kind, and for the next ten minutes a pitched gun battle was waged; several strikers and two Pinkertons were mortally wounded, with dozens of others injured, including Hugh O'Donnell, who was grazed by a bullet to his thumb. The Pinkertons remained trapped aboard the barges, while O'Donnell and his associates of the Advisory Committee attempted to restore order to the tense and bloody situation, removing wives and wounded strikers from the scene and O'Donnell personally attempting, to the best of his ability, to calm and organize the crowd.

After the battle

On July 12, 1892, O'Donnell chaired a mass meeting in Homestead which voted unanimously to support the introduction into town of the

National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...

, which had been called out by Pennsylvania Governor Robert E. Pattison."Ready for the Troops,"
''Wilkes-Barre Evening News,'' July 12, 1892, pg. 1. The meeting was addressed by Homestead burgess (mayor) John McLuckie, who railed against the Pinkertons as members of a "dirty, filthy, stinking" organization while encouraging reception of the militia "with open arms," since "they are not dangerous so long as the dignity of the state is not insulted."

Legal difficulties

O'Donnell was arrested in September 1892, charged with

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

, aggravated riot,

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

, and two counts of murder in connection with the violent battle between Homestead strikers and Pinkerton Detective Agency employees."Hugh O'Donnell," in Stuart B. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert (eds.), ''The Samuel Gompers Papers: Volume 3, Unrest and Depression, 1891-1894.'' Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989, pg. 211, fn. 5. He was held without bail on the charges, coming to trial on one of the murder charges in February 1893. O'Donnell was acquitted of the murder charge in a jury trial and was subsequently released on bail. Prosecutors never proceeded to bring O'Donnell to trial on any other offense, and all charges were eventually dropped.

Post-strike years

In the years after the failure of the Homestead strike, O'Donnell found himself blackballed from returning to work in the steel industry. Needing to adopt a new career, he moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and took a job as a newspaper reporter. In about 1903, O'Donnell accepted a position in government employment as a deputy to the Pennsylvania state factory inspector. This job placed O'Donnell in crowded Pennsylvania tenements and poorly ventilated factories on a regular basis, and he subsequently contracted

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

as a result."Gets Consumption in Slum Work,"
''New York Tribune,'' Nov. 25, 1905, pg. 7. Stricken seriously ill by the disease, in November 1905 O'Donnell left the Northeast for the warmer and drier climate of the

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

, accompanied by relatives, in an effort to regain his health. Newspaper accounts from December of that year place O'Donnell in the city of

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

."Strike Leader Here,"
''El Paso Herald,'' Dec. 16, 1905, pg. 2.

Footnotes

External links

Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area Online Collections Database
www.riversofsteel.pastperfectonline.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:ODonnell, Hugh American trade union leaders 1869 births Year of death missing