In 1892, steel workers at Carnegie’s Homestead plant clashed with Henry Clay Frick, who was determined to break their union. Goldman and Berkman, radical anarchists running an ice cream shop in Massachusetts, saw the strike as a catalyst for revolution. Berkman attempted to assassinate Frick, shooting him twice in the neck. Frick survived, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. The botched attack backfired spectacularly: public sympathy shifted against the strikers, and the union was crushed. Goldman later wrote that Berkman’s act of “propaganda by the deed” became a cautionary tale about the risks of isolated violence.
In 1892, steel workers at Carnegie’s Homestead plant clashed with Henry Clay Frick, who was determined to break their union. Goldman and Berkman, radical anarchists running an ice cream shop in Massachusetts, saw the strike as a catalyst for revolution. Berkman attempted to assassinate Frick, shooting him twice in the neck. Frick survived, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. The botched attack backfired spectacularly: public sympathy shifted against the strikers, and the union was crushed. Goldman later wrote that Berkman’s act of “propaganda by the deed” became a cautionary tale about the risks of isolated violence.