The Haymarket riot
On May 3, 1886 the police tried to intervene to stop a fight on the picket line at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. It turned into violence and the police ended up killing four strikers. After the shooting, a local anarchist group organized a meeting in Chicago's Haymarket Square to protest the shootings. At the meeting around 3,000 people showed up. As the meeting started to break up someone threw a bomb, killing one officer and wounding six others. The police opened fire and nearly 100 people, including 70 police officers, were injured. Eight people were arrested for the bombing, seven of which were German immigrants and advocates of anarchism, and four were executed.
The Homestead Strike
In 1892 a steel mill in Pennyslvania's employees belonged to a union, known as the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. This was the largest craft union in the country. The manager of the steel mill in Pennyslvania was managed by an anti-union business partner, named Henry Clay Frick. When the union was about to expire, Frick threatned to cut wages by 20%. He then locked employees out of the plant and hired an agency to bring in new workers. A strike was started, but after four months collapsed.
The pullman strike
In 1893 a car company, named the Pullman Palace Car Company, laid off workers and cut wages tremendously. As a result, workers began a strike. Other ARU (American Railroad Union) members, across the country, refused to handle Pullman cars as well. The strike and the ARU collapsed after the Supreme Court declared the right to halt boycotts.