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Mar 7, 2024 · Last Updated: Mar 7, 2024 • Article History. John Henry. Statue of John Henry, near Talcott, West Virginia. 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
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.
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.
Presenter. Scott Reynolds Nelson. According to the ballad that made him famous, John Henry did battle with a steam-powered drill, beat the machine, and died. 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 ...
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 9, 2018 · Updated bibliography. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History Bienen, Andrew; Robinson, Greg. John Henry. views 2,399,794 updated May 23 2018. John Henry, a mighty laborer who outperformed a mechanical drill, is a character who first appeared in African American songs and ballads.
John Henry was one of them. As the story goes, John Henry was the strongest, fastest, most powerful man working on the rails. He used a 14-pound hammer to drill, some historians believe, 10 to 20 feet in a 12-hour day - the best of any man on the rails. One day, a salesman came to camp, boasting that his steam-powered machine could outdrill any ...
