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Known for. American folk hero. John Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
- 1840s or 1850s
- American folk hero
May 13, 2024 · John Henry, hero of a widely sung African American folk ballad. It describes his contest with a steam drill, in which John Henry crushed more rock than did the machine but died “with his hammer in his hand.”
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn about the life and legacy of John Henry, a former prisoner who worked on the C&O Railroad and became a legend in folk songs. Historian Scott Nelson reveals how John Henry's story reflects the history of work, resistance, and protest in America.
Dec 9, 2020 · The stage was set for an epic man-versus-machine battle that would reverberate through American folklore for 150 years. According to the historian Carlene Hempel, John Henry, the best and fastest of the thousand workers on the C&O Railway, took up two hammers in an attempt to prove the enduring value of the human labor of himself and his fellow steel drivers.
A retelling of the West Virginia legend of John Henry, a slave and steel-driver who challenged a steam-powered drill and died of exhaustion. Learn about the historical and cultural context of this folktale and its variations.
Aug 1, 2013 · Learn about the legendary John Henry, a black steel driver who competed with a steam drill and died with his hammer in his hand. Explore the origins, variations, and interpretations of his story and song in American culture.
May 9, 2018 · John Henry. A towering, legendary American working-class folk heroes, John Henry represents not only the nineteenth-century struggle of the human spirit against the coming industrial era but also African-American resistance to white labor domination.
