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- Historical research supports John Henry as a real person. He was one of thousands of African-American railroad workers. John Henry's job as a steel driver was also real. These men helped drill holes for the powder used for blasting tunnels.
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Did John Henry have a ballad?
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Was John Henry A tall tale?
The ballad and folktale of John Henry, the tireless railroad worker, is the stuff of American legend. But was John Henry a real person? Find out.
Folklorists have long thought John Henry to be mythical, but historian Scott Nelson has discovered that he was a real person—a nineteen-year-old from New Jersey who was convicted of theft in a Virginia court in 1866, sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, and put to work building the C&O Railroad.
Big Bend Tunnel. Sociologist, Guy B. Johnson, investigated the legend of John Henry in the late 1920s. He concluded that John Henry might have worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway 's (C&O Railway) Big Bend Tunnel but that "one can make out a case either for or against" it.
Oct 18, 2006 · Historians have long speculated that the John Henry ballads, which began circulating in the 1870’s, referred to a real railroad worker, but Mr. Nelson, with extensive documentation in hand,...
A stanza of the ballad says that John Henry is taken to "the white house" and buried "in the sand" near a railroad. There are just a few problems with the John W. Henry story.
- John Garst
Jul 13, 2006 · In the following interview, Scott Nelson, associate professor of history, discusses his discovery of the real John Henry, the subject of his forthcoming (October 2006) book Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend. —Ed. W&M News: How did you “find” the real John Henry?
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.”
