Out of This Furnace
Out of this furnace Thomas Bell, author of Out of This Furnace, wrote a novel about immigrant labor in turn of the century America. Bell grew up in Braddock, Pennsylvania a steel town. While this book is fiction, Bell bases most of the hardships on those of his family. In the late eighteenth century immigrants came to America in search of a better way of life. Most immigrants only found hardship however, and that is explained in Bells book in a very realistic way. The newly industrialized America was willing to employ these immigrant workers. They were willing due to the fact that the immigrants would work for lower pay and longer hours, which was something the employers were looking for. Most of these immigrants would get jobs in either the railroad or the steel mills. Both of these jobs were very dangerous, the latter being the most dangerous. Men were forced to work for 12-24 hour a day work turns, where they worked besides burning hot furnaces that sometimes would explode. In Bells book he talks about how the men that worked in the mills had permanent sun burns on their face and arms, even though they hardly ever got to be out in the sun, they got them from the immense heat the furnaces produced. As Bell talked about throughou
t the novel that these men would work horrendous hours, and barely make enough to survive on their own let alone support a family. Therefore with little pay to survive, these workers barely had enough of the bare essentials. Living conditions were often atrocious, they never got enough sleep, or to eat. Throughout the book as well as describing the many hardships between wage and labor, there was also a major emphasis on the many fights and strikes between the employers, rich capitalists, and the union workers. One of the main characters, Kracha, worked in a mill owned by the richest man in the world at the time, named Carnegie. In this passage from the book it explains one of the many fights between workers and employers: Frick had smashed the unions in his coke ovens at Connellsville and some people said he meant to do a similar job in Homestead, that Carnegie had taken him in as much for that as because his blast furnaces needed Frick's coke. These were the same people who snorted disrespectfully when they were reminded that in books and speeches Carnegie had uttered some impressive sounds about democracy and workers' rights. Their suspicions were strengthened in May. While negotiations were still ostensibly in progress Frick had a tall fence built around the mill and erected searchlight platforms in the mill yard-hardly a peaceful gesture. The union men promptly nicknamed the mill fort Frick. (Bell 40) This part of the book was relating to the time when Carnegie took a vacation to Ireland and hired Frick to do his dirty work. Frick put up a fence and succeeded in pushing the union workers out of the mill, in hopes of destroying the union. Frick ended up bringing in non-union workers on a ferry down a river and right on to the mills property. He did this so that the non-union workers wouldn't hav
Some common words found in the essay are:
Braddock Pennsylvania, Mike Mary, Frick Bell, America Kracha, Westinghouse Bell, Homestead Carnegie, America America, English American, Kracha Bell, Thomas Bell, non-union workers, union workers, book bell, mike mary, organized labor, bells book, steel workers, hired frick, blast furnaces, industrialized america,
Approximate Word count = 1220
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
