John Henry
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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.
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 inspired a famous song. Historian Scott Nelson reveals how John Henry became a symbol of resistance and protest against machines and oppression.
John Henry was a legendary African American railroad worker who competed with a steam-powered drill and died of exhaustion. Learn about his possible identity, the tunnels he worked on, and his symbolism in American culture and civil rights.
- 2 min
Jan 13, 2021 · From the story of hard work and the working man overcoming the cold unfeeling steel of machinery; to its bitter history of exploiting marginalized people and infrastructure built on the bodies of...
- 7 min
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- Extra History
May 9, 2018 · 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.
Sep 22, 2011 · Henry has brought Boston not one but two World Series trophies and made Fenway the best experience in baseball, witness its 700-plus (and counting) straight sellouts. Henry is a whole host of...
