Homestead Workers Attack the Pinkertons The nation’s attention was riveted on labor strife at the Homestead steel mill in the summer of 1892. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly ran a cover story on the violence that Pinkerton agents faced from an armed crowd of men, women, and children who were enraged that Frick had hired the Pinkertons to bring in strikebreakers. Beaten and overwhelmed by the strikers, the Pinkertons surrendered. The New York Society Library.