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
Kracha's hardships lasted from the way over to America until the day he died. 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. You were able to feel their pain, and want them to have a better life. After reading Bell's book you can completely understand why the unskilled labor force would want better pay and working conditions. 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. The union men promptly nicknamed the mill fort Frick. However after Mike and Mary had three kids, Mike ended up dying while working in the mill with the blast furnaces. As a result of Mary not being able to work as much as a man would have been able to, her children were forced to start work at a very early age. A child working at an early age was not an uncommon thing; at that time children would start work as early as 12 or 13 years of age. Kracha went through many strikes in the steel mill of the time, and Bell makes reference in the book towards the strike of 1877. With the chain mill in Braddock it was the largest employer of child labor in the vicinity, a sort of preparatory school for future employees of the steel mills and the Westinghouse. Therefore with little pay to survive, these workers barely had enough of the bare essentials. When Kracha first came to the country they lived on what they called the ash heap, and he had to board with other people.
Common topics in this essay:
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,
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Acceptance Essays
