On April 1 and 2, 2023, the Pennsylvania Labor History Society and Battle of Homestead Foundation present a two-day gathering commemorating the 1922-23 United Mine Workers strike based in Windber, PA and the 1924 street battle between citizens of Lilly, PA and the Ku Klux Klan. These centennial recognitions of headline events from the 1920s mark decisive turning points in America’s progress toward religious tolerance and union rights and are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. On Sat. Apr. 1, the 1922-23 United Mine Workers strike for union recognition will be discussed at a gathering of the Pennsylvania Labor History Society in Windber’s Slovak Educational Club, 1300 Jackson Avenue. Panels include “Women in Coal and Steel”, “John Brophy and Labor Education” and “Eastern Europeans and American Labor History”. Labor singer/songwriter Tom Breiding will perform, and recipients will be named for the Society’s annual Mother Jones Award, Irwin Marcus Worker Education Award and William Sylvis Labor Award. The 1922-23 strike was the first natiowide walkout by both anthracite and bituminous miners, with more than 600,000 miners demanding better wages, improved safety conditions, the right to collective bargaining and legal protection from the systemic corporate violence and intimidation that pervaded company-run coal towns across […]

THURSDAY, Mar. 23, 2023 @ 7:30 p.m. The Battle of Homestead Foundation presents "Steeltown Jews: History and Legacy at Work in Homestead, PA", a free Zoom program discussing the development of Homestead's early Jewish community and the interplay of labor, industry and ethnicity in America's most famous steel mill town. Historian Tammy Hepps will review the history of the Jewish community in Homestead, from the 1881 arrival of the first Jewish family as the steel mill was built to the 1993 closing of the synagogue when the last members could no longer make a minyan.  In parallel, the talk will explore how the popular narratives around Homestead narrowed over time, centering on the interplay of labor and industry yet ultimately erasing people and stories that didn't fit those themes. By restoring Homestead's overlooked Jewish American narratives, new insights are provided that offer a more complete understanding of America's most famous steel mill town. REGISTER here on Eventbrite.

SATURDAY, Dec. 3, 2022 @ 6:00-9:00 p.m. — Battle of Homestead Foundation presents a free in-person screening of "City of Steel" , a new film by Bruce Spiegel. SITE:  AMC Waterfront 22 cineplex at 300 W. Waterfront Drive, West Homestead, PA 15120. * Reserved Seating — MUST REGISTER for free tickets here. City of Steel is a perceptive, poignant and deeply personal 90-minute documentary detailing the rise and fall of the steel industry in the greater Pittsburgh area. For over 100 years, the region's people, communities and neighborhoods were directly tied to the steel mills by countless social and economic links, shaping a unique way of life passed from generation to generation. * SPONSORS: The Waterfront, This Is Red, Golden Age Beer _____________________________ BRUCE SPIEGEL is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker whose aesthetic sensibilities were honed by a Pittsburgh childhood where he marveled at the Homestead Steel Works from his bedroom window. He has produced television documentaries (9-11 and Nelson Mandela: Father of a Nation), created films on music and culture (Machito, A Latin Jazz Legacy; Long Road Home; Celebration!; Bill Evans: Time Remembered) and spent 25 years as a producer, editor and director at CBS News/48 Hours Mystery. […]