Hugh O'Donnell (labor leader)
Hugh O'Donnell (about 1869 – ?) was an American steel mill worker and labor leader. He started working at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1886 when he was 17. After six months in the sheet metal mill, he moved to the Homestead works’ mill and worked as a heater in the 119-inch steel plate plant. He joined the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and was a member of Lodge No. 125.
During the Homestead Strike of 1892, O'Donnell was a mill worker, not a professional union official, but he was chosen as chairman of the Advisory Committee, which ran the strike’s activities. He urged calm and tried to keep the workers from violence or trespassing on company property, aiming to avoid giving the company an easy legal or moral victory. The Advisory Committee kept its headquarters on the third floor of the Bost Building at Eighth Avenue and Heisel Street in Homestead.
Late on July 5, 1892, about 300 Pinkerton agents arrived by train near Bellevue and were taken by barge with pistols and rifles toward Homestead. The workers learned of the Pinkerton plans around 2:30 a.m. on July 6, and a warning cry spread through the town. By dawn a clash broke out when the barges were landed. A crowd gathered along the river, and a fight began between the Pinkertons and the strikers. Shots were fired, injuring several people, including O'Donnell, who was grazed in the thumb. Local residents, such as Margaret Finch, William Foy, and Anthony Soulier, helped organize the crowd as the situation grew chaotic.
On July 12, 1892, O'Donnell chaired a mass meeting in Homestead that voted to allow the National Guard into town. The town’s mayor spoke against the Pinkertons and in favor of welcoming the militia.
O'Donnell was arrested in September 1892 on charges of conspiracy, aggravated riot, treason, and two counts of murder related to the violence at Homestead. He was held without bail and stood trial in February 1893 on one murder count, but was acquitted and released on bail. Prosecutors did not pursue the other charges, and they were eventually dropped.
After the strike failed, O'Donnell could not return to work in the steel industry. He moved to Philadelphia and worked as a newspaper reporter. Around 1903 he became a deputy to the Pennsylvania state factory inspector, giving him access to crowded tenements and poorly ventilated factories. He later contracted tuberculosis. In November 1905 he left the Northeast for a warmer climate and went to El Paso, Texas, where he was reported to be in December of that year.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:48 (CET).