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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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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.’
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The story of John Henry is traditionally told through two types of songs: ballads, commonly called "The Ballad of John Henry", and "hammer songs" (a type of work song), each with wide-ranging and varying lyrics.
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.
Dec 9, 2020 · 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.
- Introduction
- The Steel-Driver’S Story
- The Tunnel
- Legacy
- Role in American Civil Rights Movement
- John Henryism
Of uncertain historicity but undeniable cultural importance is the story of John Henry, the steel-driving man. He was an African American railroad worker who became a folk hero among the poor thanks to his earthy nature, physical prowess, and dramatic struggle against the machinery slowly replacing laborers like him.
The role of a steel-driving man is to hammer a steel drill into solid rock so that explosives can be inserted into the holes for the clearing out and construction of railroad tunnels. John Henry’s story is traditionally dated to sometime in the later half of the 19th century, at a time when manual steel-drivers were being replaced by faster, more e...
It is unclear exactly where or when John Henry won that tunnel race, if it did occur. Theories offered by various researchers over the years have suggested Big Bend Tunnel, West Virginia in 1870-72, Lewis Tunnel, Virginia in 1873, and Coosa Mountain Tunnel, Alabama in 1877. Many of these theories place John Henry as a former slave, or the son of a ...
Whether John Henry’s story is based in fact or fiction isn’t very important when we look at the symbol which he has become. Because of the profession he worked in until his dying breath, he has been used as a rallying point for labor movements, and in particular the countless other faceless railroad workers who died from accidents and illness over ...
Because of his race and the trials he nobly endured, his image was right at home with the American Civil Rights Movement. His story represents the worst aspects of exploitation and the degradation of human beings brought on by the age of machinery, yet he also embodies the greatest qualities of the human beings who fight and succeed through great a...
One legacy of John Henry that is especially apropos of his use as a symbol for black perseverance in the face of discrimination is the use of his name to describe a stress coping strategy. John Henryism (or simply JH) is the act of responding to prolonged stresses’ at work, in daily life, or from social discrimination’ by expending higher and highe...
John Henry held up his hammers in triumph! The men shouted and cheered. The noise was so loud, it took a moment for the men to realize that John Henry was tottering. Exhausted, the mighty man crashed to the ground, the hammer’s rolling from his grasp.
Apr 13, 2024 · According to folklore, John Henry was a steel driver—a manual laborer tasked with hammering steel drills into rock to create holes for explosives.
