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John Henry is an American folk hero, notable for having raced against a steam-powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, and other works of literature and art.
Folklore
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Like other "Big Men" such as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, John Henry also served as a mythical representation of a group within the melting pot of the 19th-century working class. In the most popular version of the story, Henry is born into the world big and strong weighing 330 pounds. He grows to become the greatest "steel-driver" in the mid-century push to erect the railroads across the mountains to the West. When the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer to do the work of his mostly black driving crew, to save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: himself alone versus the steam hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but exhausted, collapses and dies.
In modern depictions John Henry is often portrayed as hammering down rail spikes, but older versions depict him as being born with a hammer in his hand; driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of excavating railroad tunnels and cuttings.
In almost all versions of the story, John Henry is a black man, a folk hero for American working-class people, representing their marginalization during changes entering the machine age in America. While the character may or may not have been based on a real person, Henry became an important symbol of the working class. His story is usually seen as an archetypal illustration of the futility of fighting the technological progress that was evident in the 19th century taking over from traditional physical labor roles. Some labor advocates interpret the legend as illustrating that even the most skilled workers of time-honored practices are marginalized when companies are more interested in efficiency and production than in their employees' health and well-being. Although John Henry proved himself more powerful than the steam-drill, he worked himself to death and was replaced by the machine anyway. Thus the legend of John Henry has been a staple of American labor and mythology for well over one hundred years.
Cultural references
Literature
Henry is the subject of the 1931 Roark Bradford novel John Henry, illustrated by noted woodcut artist J. J. Lankes. It was adapted into a stage musical in 1940, starring Paul Robeson in the title role. Colson Whitehead's 2001 novel John Henry Days uses the John Henry myth as story background.
The legend of John Henry was the inspiration for the third version of the DC Comics superhero Steel — also known as John Henry Irons. He is depicted fighting the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern United States in the 2003 limited series DC: The New Frontier, set in the 1950s.
John Henry is also the character in a book called Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
John Henry is also a character in a short story entitled, “The Ballad of Eskimo Nell Revisited” by Jim Reader, which appears in the anthology, Ladies of Trade Town, Lee Martindale (editor), HarpHaven Press, 2011
In a book series called "The Clockwork Dark" by John Claude Bemis, a character named Conker is the son of John Henry. The series is based on American Folktales and Tall Tales. Instead of fighting a steam drill, Henry destroyed a terrible machine that threatened mankind. The machine was created by a villain called the Gog.
Song
Songs featuring the story of John Henry have been sung by many blues, folk, and rock musicians, such as: Furry Lewis, Pink Anderson, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Henry Thomas, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Joan Baez, Bob Gibson (musician), Woody Guthrie, Merle Travis, Pete Seeger, Lonnie Donegan, Big Bill Broonzy, Odetta, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, John Renbourn, John Fahey, The New Christy Minstrels, Harry Belafonte, Mark Knopfler, Roberta Flack, Dave Van Ronk, Taj Mahal, Little Jimmy Dickens, Gillian Welch, Justin Townes Earle, Delta Spirit, Johnny Cash, David Bazan and Joe Bonamassa.
Bill Monroe, "The Father of Bluegrass Music," sings "Nine Pound Hammer", which has become a standard. John Henry Brown is the main character in the song "Walk on Boy" recorded by Doc Watson. Dave Dudley wrote his own variation called "John Henry", as did Tennessee Ernie Ford. Johnny Cash wrote and performed "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer", one of many requested songs he performed at Folsom Prison, California in 1968. Tom T. Hall performed "More About John Henry", which explored John Henry's personal life.
The Supremes recorded a song in 1967 entitled "Treat Me Nice John Henry". Alternative rock band They Might Be Giants named their 1994 album John Henry. Van Morrison recorded a rock version on his 1998 album The Philosopher's Stone. More recently, Bruce Springsteen performed the song with a folk band on his 2006 album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. Alt-country group Songs: Ohia released the song "John Henry Split My Heart" on their 2003 album Magnolia Electric Co., and fellow alt-country group Drive-By Truckers released the song "The Day John Henry Died" on their 2004 album The Dirty South. Mark Knopfler's "Song for Sonny Liston", from his 2004 album Shangri-La, compares Sonny Liston's left jab to Henry's hammer, but Henry Cooper's left was also known as Henry's hammer, possibly because of John Henry's hammer.
American composer Aaron Copland arranged the traditional "John Henry" for orchestra or chamber orchestra in 1940. Jerry Lee Lewis recorded the song in 1960.
The song was translated into Norwegian as "Jon Henry" in 1973 by Odd Børretzen.
The Smothers Brothers have also used the "John Henry" song as part of their folk satire routine.
Hugh Laurie has also used the "John Henry" song as a part of his blues album Let Them Talk.
Stringband's 1977 album "Thanks to the Following" includes the parody "Mail-Sortin' Man," about a Canadian postal worker named John Henry who can sort mail faster than the steam-sorter.
Film
Stop-motion animator George Pal made the 7-minute short "John Henry and the Inky-Poo" in 1946. It was nominated for an Academy Award the following year for best short subject/cartoons.
In 1973, Nick Bosustow and David Adams co-produced an 11-minute animated short, The Legend of John Henry for Paramount Pictures. It featured narration by Roberta Flack, who also sings a song detailing the legend of John Henry. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1974 for best short subject animated films.
In 1995, he appeared in the live-action Disney movie "Tall Tale" portrayed by Roger Aaron Brown.
In 2000, Walt Disney completed a short subject film based on John Henry, directed by Mark Henn, written by Shirley Pierce, with Tim Hodge as story supervisor, and produced by Steven Keller. The creators worked with the Grammy Award-winning group Sounds of Blackness to create all new songs for the film. The film also featured the voice talent of actress Alfre Woodard. The film was one of seven finalists for the 2001 Academy Awards in its category. An edited version was released only as part of a video compilation entitled Disney's American Legends in 2001. The film is often shown on the Disney Channel, particularly during Black History Month. In the Disney movie Tall Tale, John Henry is depicted as losing the battle with the steam powered hammer.
Television
John Henry is also referenced in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as the new name of the reprogrammed T-888 terminator, a man of metal. The terminator had been previously destroyed but was rebuilt: the name serves as a metaphor for the inability of humans to stop the inevitable progress of the machines toward Judgment Day, and the Pyrrhic victories they continually win in trying to do so.
Other
In 1996, the U.S. Post Office issued a John Henry 32-cent postage stamp, and the American race horse John Henry was named after him.
In 2011, Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD produced an original play, The Day John Henry Came to School by Eric Pfeffinger and directed by Janet Stanford.
In the train building boardgame "Steel Driver" (Treefrog Games 2008) John Henry features on the cover and is cited as the inspiration for the game's name.
Historical Underpinnings?
The truth about John Henry as the strongest man alive is obscured by time and myth, but one legend has it that he was a slave born in Missouri in the 1840s and fought his notable battle with the steam hammer along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in Talcott, West Virginia. A statue and memorial plaque have been placed along a highway south of Talcott as it crosses over the tunnel in which the competition may have taken place.
The railroad historian Reagan C. Long found that there were multiple tunnels along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway. Also, the C&O employed multiple black men who went by the name "John Henry" at the time that those tunnels were being built. Though he could not find any documentary evidence, he believes on the basis of anecdotal evidence that the contest between man and machine did indeed happen at the Talcott, West Virginia, site because of the presence of all three (a man named John Henry, a tunnel named Big Bend, and a steam-powered drill) at the same time at that place.
Another hypothesis is that the competition took place in Leeds, Alabama. It is said to have happened in Oak Mountain Tunnel, which is supposedly haunted by his ghost. Obviously there is a big difference in location, and even railroad. Many engineers will blow their horns in honor of John Henry before entering the north end of the tunnel.
The book Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend by Scott Reynolds Nelson, an associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary, argues that John William Henry, (#497) a prisoner in the Virginia penitentary, leased by the warden to work on the C&O Railway in the 1870s, is the basis for the legendary John Henry
Nelson points out 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, where prisoners 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 he 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.
Retired chemistry professor and folklorist John Garst has argued that the contest instead happened at the Coosa Mountain Tunnel or the Oak Mountain Tunnel of the Columbus and Western Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern) near Leeds, Alabama 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. The city of Leeds is making plans to honor John Henry's legend with an exhibit in its Bass House historical museum and with a planned annual festival culminating on the third Saturday of September.
Though no documentary proof has emerged to rule out either theory, both Talcott and Leeds use their supposed connections with the legend in promotional and educational literature and events. Every year, on the weekend after the Fourth of July, the town of Talcott hosts a celebration known as "John Henry Days." The weekend includes many yard sales, a huge parade, fireworks, and a rubber ducky race against a paddle steamer.
According to family history of John W. Holder's descendants, Polly Holder was cook for the work crews at Talcott, West Virginia. John Holder was the crew foreman that broke the light hole through on the Great Bend Tunnel at Talcott.
See also
References
- "NPR : John Henry, Present at the Creation". Retrieved 2011-08-14.
- "Discography » Magnolia Electric Co. - Magnolia Electric Co". Magnolia Electric Co. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
- "Odd Børretzen & Alf Cranner". This is Music From Norway.
- Who's Who in Animated Cartoons by Jeff Lenburg, p. 33
- Long, Roy C. (1991). "Big Bend Times". C&O History.
- Nelson, p. 39
- Grimes, William. "Taking Swings at a Myth, With John Henry the Man", New York Times, Books section, October 18, 2006.
- Downes, Lawrence. "John Henry Days", New York Times, Books section, April 18, 2008.
- "John Henry - The Story - Lewis Tunnel". Ibiblio.org. 2006-07-13. Retrieved 2010-07-20.
- Nelson, p. 32
- Garst, John (2002). "Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi: A Personal Memoir of Work in Progress". Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association. 5: 92–129.
- Thornton, William (September 3, 2006). "Leeds' plans for saluting Henry". Birmingham News.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - Clowers, Don (September 14, 2006). "John Henry - Leeds connection doesn't exist". Leeds News.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - Guy Johnson, John Henry, the search for a Negro Legend, pub. 1920
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 Jack (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. (Summer 2005) "Who Was John Henry? Railroad Construction, Southern Folklore, and the Birth of Rock and Roll." Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas Vol. 2. No. 2, pp. 53–79.
- Nelson, Scott (2006). Steel Drivin' Man. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195300109.
- Garst, John (November 27, 2006) "On the Trail of the Real John Henry". History News Network. (includes rebuttal by Scott Nelson)
- Smith, Susan (2010) The Captain and John HenryXlibris press
External links
- John Henry - The Steel Driving Man Includes a page with the updated abstract of Garst (2002) above.
- John Henry, Present at the Creation
- John Henry Statue at Heritagepreservation.org
- Three Rivers Travel Council - John Henry Information The Legend of John Henry Information
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