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- 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.
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Mar 7, 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 the machine did but died ‘with his hammer in his hand.’. Writers and artists see in John Henry a symbol of the worker’s foredoomed struggle against the machine.
- Kids
Along with Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed , John Henry is...
- Patricia Bauer
Pat Bauer graduated from Ripon College in 1977 with a double...
- Kids
Railroad worker. 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
Dec 9, 2020 · As a Black American folk hero, John Henry became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, and even today his story's universal themes resonate, as the automation of work and the ubiquity of technology raise questions about the value of human labor and what is inevitably lost with the march of technological progress.
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.
May 9, 2018 · Myths and Legends of the World. John Henry John Henry, a mighty laborer who outperformed a mechanical drill, is a character who first appeared in African American songs and ballads. He can be seen as a symbol of black strength and of African Americans [1]' refusal to be crushed.
Aug 1, 2013 · One of the most colorful characters in American folklore is the legendary John Henry. Whether he was a true historical figure or a fictitious hero carved into the minds of common Americans by oral tradition, his story has given inspiration to generations. Geoff Edgers said in his Analysis of John Henry Music, “John Henry, as ultimate working ...
As far as anyone can determine, John Henry was hired as a steel-driver for the C&O Railroad, a wealthy company that was extending its line from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio Valley. Steel drivers, also known as a hammer man, would spend their workdays driving holes into rock by hitting thick steel drills or spikes.