Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell
Out of This Furnace tells a impressive story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the United States in search of a better life in the New World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the "old country." The story tells of his voyage, his work on the railroad to earn enough money to afford the walk to the steel mills of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a "hunkey," and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the cruel treatment and the discrimination they suffer.
For the Kracha family, a slow rise to proud business ownership was ended by a series of events: (1) a summer of drunken abandon by Djuro; (2) his return to the steel mills (3) his daughter's (Mary) marriage to a fellow countryman also in the mills; and (4) his grandson's growing discontentment with unfair labor practices and abuses. These events in the Kracha family's lives become intertwined with the story of America's own transformation between the 1880s and the 1940s.
At the time that this family arrived in the United States, a new wave of Eastern European immigration - spurred by growing industrialization and the advances in technology leading to the establishment of steel mills and other manufacturing and raw material processing factories and plants - was reshaping the American labor force. Djuro's experiences, and those of his son-in-law, Mike Dobrejcak, reflect a certain level of hostility towards these Eastern and Central Europeans from "mainstream" Americans and earlier, more acc...
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...erica has come to mean many different things to many different people. At the very heart of the "American dream" are the twin ideas of freedom and equality. This nation was founded on the republican principles of justice for all, friendship with all nations, and entangling alliances with none. These basic principles have, over time, undergone some changes. The United States today has, for example, any number of "entangling alliances" that are highly influential in shaping its domestic and foreign policies. Nevertheless, the principle of "justice for all" remains in force and continues to attract new immigrants each year, while fostering conflicted efforts to determine what actually constitutes "justice and equality."
Works Cited:
Bell, Thomas, Out of This Furnace: a Novel of Immigrant Labor in America,
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1976.
...ough his words refer to historical sources, they also apply to Douglas Monroy himself. Unveiling the intricacies of cultural interactions is a difficult task, and Monroy successfully reveals many of the complexities and contradictions of historical writing. However, he does not escape the tendency to create homogenous ?others.? Portions of his book, such as the treatment of Indians at the mission, are questionable. Although he maintains that his underlying theme is labor relations, the depth with which he writes about law and society seem to dictate a more holistic analysis. Labor relations among conflicting cultures may create history, but believing that history does not create labor relations seems unconvincingly economically determinist.
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The book Out of this Furnace written by Thomas Bell is about a Slovak family immigration to America. Immigrating to America for the Slovak family brought trials and problems. The work that was available for the George, Mike and Johnny is hard and requires long hours of work, for very little pay. The family came hoping to get a better life. But in the end the American dream became very hard for them to reach. Jobs were hard to find and working in the mill required movement from place to place, finding a home for the family was difficult and making sure that family was happy and taken care wasn’t easy. Reaching the American dream was difficult for the immigrants, especially for the Slovak family.
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