John Henry (folklore) - Wikipedia
WEBJohn 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.
John Henry | Song, Background, & Facts | Britannica
WEBSep 24, 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 the machine did but died ‘with his hammer in his hand.’
John Henry | The Poetry Foundation
WEBJohn Henry hammered on the right-hand side. Steam drill kept driving on the left. John Henry beat that steam drill down. But he hammered his poor heart to death, Lord, Lord, He hammered his poor heart to death. Well, they carried John Henry down the tunnel. And they laid his body in the sand.
John Henry: The Steel Driving Man - American Folklore
WEBJohn 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.
The Legend of John Henry: Talcott, WV - U.S. National Park Service
WEBUsing two 10-pound hammers, one in each hand, he pounded the drill so fast and so hard that he drilled a 14-foot hole into the rock. The legend says that the drill was only able to drill nine feet. John Henry beat the steam drill and later died of exhaustion.
This Old Hammer: About the Song - Ballad of America
WEBThis Old Hammer: About the Song. John Henry was a former slave who worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in the years following the Civil War. He was one of a thousand or so men who spent nearly three years drilling a hole through Big Bend Mountain in Talcott, West Virginia.
The Legend Of John Henry Explained - Grunge
WEBDec 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.
John Henry - Encyclopedia.com
WEBMay 9, 2018 · In the legend John Henry, an enormously strong black steel driver, pits himself in a contest against a steam drill intended to replace workers. Wielding only a hammer, John Henry wins by drilling holes along fourteen feet of granite, compared to the machine's nine feet, but the effort kills him.
John Henry - The Story - The Man - The Public's Library and …
WEBJohn 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.
The Ballad of John Henry | USC Digital Folklore Archives
WEBThe Ballad of John Henry was an Afro-American folk song dating back to the late 1800s. The song tells of a man who worked as a steel driver when the railroads were being built across Western America. John was so good at his job, that he was put up against a steam powered hammer in a race to see who would complete the job faster.