John Henry (folklore)
Encyclopedia
Folk hero
A folk hero is a type of hero, real, fictional, or mythological. The single salient characteristic which makes a character a folk hero is the imprinting of the name, personality and deeds of the character in the popular consciousness. This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by...
and tall tale
Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...
. Henry worked as a "steel-driver"—a man tasked with hammering and chiseling rock in the construction of tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
s for railroad tracks. In the legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was measured in a race against a steam powered hammer
Power hammer
Power hammers are mechanical forging hammers that use a non-muscular power source to raise the hammer preparatory to striking, and accelerate it onto the work being hammered...
, which he won only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. The story of John Henry has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, plays, and novels.
Legend
The legend of John Henry has been compared to that of other American "Big Men", such as Paul BunyanPaul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
and Pecos Bill
Pecos Bill
Pecos Bill is an American cowboy, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tales of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona. Their stories were probably invented into short stories and book by Edward O'Reilly in the...
. John Henry's heroism is associated with several elements: his strength and grit as a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
common man
Common man
Common man may refer to:*Common people*Champion of the Common Man*"Common Man progrum" on sport hosted by Dan Cole*The cartoon character by R K Laxman, The Common Man*The Common Man , the 1975 French film...
, his status as a hero to African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
laborers, and his allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
depiction of "the tragedy of man versus machine" and other aspects of modernization.
There are many versions of John Henry's story. In almost all versions of the story, John Henry is a black man of exceptional physical gifts, a former slave, possibly born in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. Henry becomes the greatest "steel-driver" in the mid-nineteenth-century push to expand railroads from the east coast of the United States
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
, across and through the mountains, to the frontier West. However, the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer
Steam hammer
A steam hammer is a power-driven hammer used to shape forgings. It consists of a hammer-like piston located within a cylinder. The hammer is raised by the pressure of steam injected into the lower part of a cylinder and falls down with a force by removing the steam. Usually, the hammer is made to...
to do the work of his mostly black steel-driving crew. To save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: Henry will race the steam-powered hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but exhausted, collapses and dies.
Historicity
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P...
. In particular, Henry is claimed to have raced the steam hammer during the construction of Big Bend tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia
Talcott, West Virginia
Talcott is an unincorporated community in Summers County, West Virginia, United States.It lies along West Virginia Route 3 and the Greenbrier River to the east of the city of Hinton, the county seat of Summers County. Its elevation is 1,526 feet , and it is located at about...
between 1869 and 1871. Talcott holds a yearly festival named for Henry and a statue and memorial plaque have been placed along a highway south of Talcott as it crosses over the Big Bend tunnel.
In Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend, Scott Reynolds Nelson
Scott Reynolds Nelson
Scott Reynolds Nelson is the Legum Professor of History at the College of William and Mary. He is a historian of the American Civil War and the Gilded Age...
, an associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
, argues that John William Henry (prisoner #497 in the Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
penitentiary, released by the warden to work on the C&O Railway in the 1870s) is the basis for the legendary John Henry. Nelson asserts that a steam drill race at the Big Bend Tunnel would have been impossible because railroad records do not indicate a steam drill being used there. Instead, he believes the contest took place at the Lewis Tunnel, between Talcott and Millboro, Virginia
Millboro, Virginia
Millboro is an unincorporated community in Bath County, Virginia, in the United States.-Reference:...
, where prison slaves
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
worked beside steam drills. Nelson also believes that an early version of the ballad that refers to John Henry's grave as being at "the white house", "in sand", and somewhere that locomotives roar, indicates that Henry was buried at the Virginia penitentiary, where unmarked graves have been found.
According to Nelson:
...workers managed their labor by setting a "stint," or pace, for it. Men who violated the stint were shunned...Here was a song that told you what happened to men who worked too fast: they died ugly deaths; their entrails fell on the ground. You sang the song slowly, you worked slowly, you guarded your life, or you died.
Other research has placed Henry's famous race near Leeds, Alabama
Leeds, Alabama
Leeds is a tri-county municipality located in Jefferson, St. Clair, and Shelby Counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a suburb of Birmingham. As of the 2009 population estimate, the population of the city is about 11,474.-History:...
. Retired chemistry professor and folklorist John Garst, of the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
, has argued that the contest instead happened at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the C&O Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern Railway
Norfolk Southern Railway
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation. With headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, the company operates 21,500 route miles in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario, Canada...
) near Leeds on September 20, 1887. Based on documentation that corresponds with the account of C. C. Spencer, who claimed in the 1920s to have witnessed the contest, Garst speculates that John Henry may have been a man named Henry who was born a slave to P.A.L. Dabney, the father of the chief engineer of that railroad, in 1850. Since 2007, the city of Leeds has honored John Henry's legend during an annual September festival, held third weekend in September, called the Leeds Downtown Folk Festival & John Henry Celebration.
Garst and Nelson have debated the merits of their divergent research conclusions. Other claims have been made over the years that places Henry and his contest in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
or Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
.
Cultural references and influence
The tale of John Henry has been used as a symbol in many cultural movements, including labor movements and the Civil Rights MovementCivil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
.
Music
The story of John Henry is traditionally told through two types of songs: balladBallad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s, commonly referred to as "The Ballad of John Henry", and work songs known as hammer songs, each with wide-ranging and varying lyrics. Some songs, and some early folk historian research, conflate the songs about John Henry with those of John Hardy
John Hardy (song)
"John Hardy" is a traditional American folk song based on the life of a railroad worker in West Virginia. The historical John Hardy killed a man during a craps game, was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894....
, a West Virginian outlaw. Ballads about John Henry's life typically contain four major components: a premonition by John Henry as a child that steel-driving would lead to his death, the lead-up to and the results of the race against the steam hammer, Henry's death and burial, and the reaction of John Henry's wife.
Songs featuring the story of John Henry have been recorded by many blues, folk, and rock musicians of different ethnic backgrounds. Many notable musicians have recorded John Henry ballads, including: Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, Black Country Communion, Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis
Furry Lewis was an American country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.-Life and...
, Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
, Pink Anderson
Pink Anderson
"Pink" Anderson was a blues singer and guitarist, born in Laurens, South Carolina.-Life and career:After being raised in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, he joined Dr...
, Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson was an American old time fiddler and an early-recorded country musician.-Early life:...
, Uncle Dave Macon
Uncle Dave Macon
Uncle Dave Macon , born David Harrison Macon—also known as "The Dixie Dewdrop"—was an American banjo player, singer, songwriter, and comedian...
, J. E. Mainer
J. E. Mainer
J. E. Mainer was an American old time fiddler who followed in the wake of Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers.-Biography:...
, Leon Bibb
Leon Bibb (musician)
Leon Bibb is an American folk singer and actor who grew up in Kentucky, worked in New York, and has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada since 1969.Bibb was born in Louisville, Kentucky...
, Lead Belly, Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Gillian Welch
Gillian Welch
Gillian Welch is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, Bluegrass, and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely...
, the Drive-By Truckers
Drive-By Truckers
Drive-By Truckers are an alternative country/Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, though three out of six members are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama, and the band strongly identifies with Alabama. Their music uses three guitars as well as bass, drums, and now...
, Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
, and Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
.
Literature
Henry is the subject of the 19311931 in literature
The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!....
Roark Bradford
Roark Bradford
Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford was an American short story writer and novelist.-Life:...
novel John Henry
John Henry (novel)
John Henry is a 1931 novel by Roark Bradford and illustrated by woodcut artist J. J. Lankes, based on the African-American folk hero of the same name. It was made into a Broadway play and later a musical featuring Paul Robeson in the title role and Ruby Elzy as Julie Anne....
, illustrated by noted woodcut artist J. J. Lankes
J. J. Lankes
Julius John Lankes was an illustrator, a woodcut print artist, author, and college professor.-Early life and education:Lankes was born on August 31, 1884 in Buffalo, New York to parents of German heritage. His father worked in a lumber mill and brought home small scraps of wood...
. The novel was adapted into a stage musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
in 1940, starring Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
in the title role. According to Steven Carl Tracy, Bradford's works were influential in broadly popularizing the John Henry legend beyond railroad and mining communities and outside of African American oral histories. In a 1933 article published in The Journal of Negro Education, Bradford's John Henry was criticized for "making over a folk-hero into a clown." A 1948 obituary for Bradford described John Henry as "a better piece of native folklore than Paul Bunyan."
Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats , Caldecott-winning author of The Snowy Day, was one of the most important children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th Century....
's John Henry: An American Legend, published in 1965, is a notable picture book
Picture book
A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...
chronicling the history of John Henry and portraying him as the "personification of the medieval Everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
who struggles against insurmountable odds and wins."
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist. He is best known as the author of the 2001 novel John Henry Days. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.-Early life:...
's 2001 novel John Henry Days
John Henry Days
John Henry Days is a 2001 Pulitzer Prize shortlisted novel by African American author Colson Whitehead.John Henry Days is a portrait of America...
uses the John Henry myth as story background. Whitehead fictionalized the Talcott, West Virginia, John Henry Days festival and the release of the John Henry postage stamp in 1996.
The legend of John Henry was the inspiration for the third version of the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
superhero Steel
John Henry Irons
Steel , also known as the Man of Steel, is a fictional character, a superhero in the DC Universe. First appearing in The Adventures of Superman #500 , he is the third character known as Steel and was created by Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove...
— also known as John Henry Irons
Steel (John Henry Irons)
Steel , also known as the Man of Steel, is a fictional character, a superhero in the DC Universe. First appearing in The Adventures of Superman #500 , he is the third character known as Steel and was created by Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove...
, created by writer Louise Simonson
Louise Simonson
Louise Simonson, born Mary Louise Alexander , is an American comic book writer and editor. She is best known for her work on comic book titles such as Power Pack, X-Factor, New Mutants, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Steel...
and artist Jon Bogdanove
Jon Bogdanove
Jon Bogdanove is an American comic book artist and writer. He is best known for his work on Power Pack, Superman: The Man of Steel, and for creating the character Steel with writer Louise Simonson in 1993.-Comics:...
. He is depicted fighting the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
in the 2003 limited series DC: The New Frontier
DC: The New Frontier
DC: The New Frontier is an Eisner, Harvey, and Shuster Award-winning six-issue comic book limited series written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, published by DC Comics in 2003-2004. It was then collected into two trade paperback volumes from 2004–2005 and then an Absolute Edition in 2006...
, set in the 1950s.
Film
Stop-motion animator George PalGeorge Pál
George Pal , born György Pál Marczincsak, was a Hungarian-born American animator and film producer, principally associated with the science fiction genre...
's 7-minute short film John Henry and the Inky-Poo was nominated for an Academy Award in 1947
19th Academy Awards
The 19th Academy Awards continued a trend through the late-1940s of the Oscar voters honoring films about contemporary social issues. The Best Years of Our Lives concerns the lives of three returning veterans from three branches of military service as they adjust to life on the home front after...
for Best Animated Short Film.
In 1973, Nick Bosustow and David Adams co-produced an 11-minute animated short, The Legend of John Henry for Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. The film featured narration by Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...
, who also sings a song detailing the legend of John Henry, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1974
46th Academy Awards
The 46th Academy Awards were presented April 2, 1974 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by John Huston, Diana Ross, Burt Reynolds, David Niven....
for Best Animated Short Film.
John Henry was played by Roger Aaron Brown
Roger Aaron Brown
Roger Aaron Brown is an American character actor known for his role as Deputy Chief Joe Noland on the hit CBS drama television series The District from 2000 to 2004, and for his minor role in the 1988 science fiction film Alien Nation as Det. Bill "Tug" Tuggle, the partner and friend of Matthew...
in the 1995 live-action Disney movie Tall Tale; in this film, Henry is depicted as losing the battle with the steam powered hammer.
In 2000, Walt Disney Animation Studios released John Henry, a short subject film directed by Mark Henn
Mark Henn
Mark Henn is a Disney animator, whose contributions to animation have included several Disney leading or title characters, most notably heroines. He studied in the Character Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts in the seventies. His work includes Princess Jasmine in Aladdin,...
, with music from Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness is a Grammy Award-winning vocal and instrumental ensemble from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota who perform music from several genres music including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group scored several hits on the Billboard R&B chart and Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play...
and voice acting from Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
, Geoffrey Jones
Geoffrey Jones
Geoffrey Jones was a British documentary film director and editor, noted for his contributions to the genre of the industrial film, and in particular British Transport Films.-British Transport Films:...
and Tim Hodge
Tim Hodge
Timothy "Tim" Hodge is an American voice actor, writer and director who works at Big Idea Entertainment in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has worked on the VeggieTales videos as well other projects like 3-2-1 Penguins!....
. The film won a 2000 Giffoni Film Festival
Giffoni Film Festival
The Giffoni International Film Festival is the largest children’s film festival in Europe, and possibly the World. It takes place in the little Italian town of Giffoni Valle Piana in Southern Italy, close to Salerno. Over 2,000 children attend the festival from 39 countries around the world...
award and was nominated at the 2000 Annie Awards. An edited version was released as part of a video compilation entitled Disney's American Legends
Disney's American Legends
Disney's American Legends is a home video release narrated by James Earl Jones and which features the following Walt Disney Feature Animation animated short subjects:*Johnny Appleseed released in 1948*The Brave Engineer released in 1950...
in 2002.
Other
In 1996, the U.S. Post Office issued a John Henry 32-cent postage stampPostage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
. It was part of a set honoring American folk heroes that included Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Casey at the Bat
Casey at the Bat
"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.The poem was originally published...
.
The American race horse John Henry
John Henry (horse)
John Henry was an American Thoroughbred race horse who had 39 wins, with $6,591,860 in earnings. He was twice voted the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year in 1981 and 1984, with his 1981 selection is the only one whereby the victor received all votes cast for that award. John Henry was also...
was named after the legendary figure.
The band They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
named their 1994 album John Henry
John Henry (album)
John Henry is the name of They Might Be Giants' fifth original album, although it is the sixth disc in their discography. It was released in 1994. It is the first album in which John Linnell and John Flansburgh utilized a full band, as opposed to playing most or all of the instruments themselves....
as a reference to the fable's "man versus machine" theme. (The album marked the band's switch from using an electronic drum machine to a human drummer)
Further reading
- Johnson, Guy B. (1929) John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
- Chappell, Louis W. (1933) John Henry; A Folk-Lore Study. Reprinted 1968. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press
- Keats, Ezra JackEzra Jack KeatsEzra Jack Keats , Caldecott-winning author of The Snowy Day, was one of the most important children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th Century....
(1965) John Henry, An American Legend. New York: Pantheon Books. - Williams, Brett (1983) John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography by Brett Williams. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press
- Nelson, Scott. "Who Was John Henry? Railroad Construction, Southern Folklore, and the Birth of Rock and Roll", Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas Summer 2005 2(2): 53-80;
External links
- John Henry - The Steel Driving Man Includes a page with the updated abstract of Garst (2002) above.
- John Henry Statue at Heritagepreservation.org
- Three Rivers Travel Council - John Henry Information The Legend of John Henry Information