Analysis Of The Book ' Out Of This Furnace ' By Thomas Bell

These “newcomers” did not deserve to come here and steal their jobs. Mike Trudic’s account from his childhood referred to his father’s hunt in America to desperately find work, “At the end of a week he was taken ill and died. It said he died of a broken heart”(Mike, 188). There were just too many workers and not enough jobs to be filled. Another first hand source provided by Rose Cohen, called Out of the Shadow, depicts the story of a jewish girl in New York and the experiences her family goes through in order to reach a sustainable lifestyle. The struggles included descriptions of harsh working conditions and anti-semitism, which created difficulty for immigrants who were trying to assimilate into the American culture.

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Kracha portrays the two distinct classes in America as “it’s run just like any other country. In Europe your emperors and grand dukes own everything and over here it’s your millionaires and your trust” (Bell 66). Specifically, the May Day Strike where the working class rose against the owners in order to receive eight hour work days on May 1, 1886, where numerous workers left business all over the nation. Unfortunately, on May 3. 1886 violence broke out against the strikers and the police resulting in two strikers killed and many wounded. Violence also occurred in the Homestead strike resulting in “ten men were dead, seven of them steelworkers, and sixty wounded” (Bell 42). These protests by working men for their rights ultimately always ended in violence were the government had to break up the

The book “Out of This Furnace” by Thomas Bell tells stories of three generations of an immigrant family in the 19th century. The first part of the book is about the story of Kracha, our first protagonist. Kracha left Slovakia to come to America for more opportunities. As Kracha settled in America, he married Elena. Life in the United States was rough for the Kracha’s family, and it turned out just as difficult as in his homeland. Kracha worked different jobs and realized that they were all low wage. He ended up working at the Mills.

To begin, the "Robber Barons" of the late 1800's treated their workers poorly. First of all, according to the political cartoon by Keppler and Schwarzmann, business owners paid their workers $6-11 a week (Doc A). This conveys that business owners were not giving enough money to pay their workers. Also, in the article of the Homestead Steel Mill by PBS.org it states,"… for the rest of the year, they worked like animals,"(Doc F). This reveals that in Carnegie's Homestead Mill, many worked

The book Out of This Furnace is a work of historical fiction written by Thomas Bell, in which the lives of four different individuals are told and woven together, and consequentially describe the changes taking place in different generations of immigrant workers in America. Beginning with Kracha, then leading to Mike, then Mary, and finally Dobie, this book does an excellent job of showing how the American immigrant's life changed mid 1800s to the 1920s. As seen in each generation, immigrants became as a whole more and more liberal in their beliefs and lifestyles. Many of their beliefs change, however, one of the most interesting is the development of the labor unions, and how they are viewed by the workers in that time period.

“Out of this Furnace” is a fictional novel by Thomas Bell which is based on true events from the 18th century. It is a well-written tale of Slovak immigrants who came to the United States in search of better opportunities than they had in their old country. The story revolves around four main characters: Djuro Kracha, Kracha’s daughter Mary, Mary’s husband, Mike Dobrejcak, and, their son Dobie. As history tells us, many early immigrants who moved to America had either of these motives: financial prosperity, social status and societal freedom. Similarly, as the story unfolds, we see that all of these characters became subject to harsh conditions and that each of them went through their own version of struggle. This novel has succeeded in enlightening us about the great effort that these Slovak immigrants made against the issues that encountered them in America. They faced numerous hardships in the form of underpaid and unsafe jobs, poor residence and other types of inequalities.

For many Americans, the late nineteenth century was a time of big business, marked by economic and social evolution. In the period between the 1880 and 1920, the American economy was growing at a rapid pace. Many European immigrants without industrial skills flooded into American factories and steel mills. These new comer's came in search of better economic opportunity, which paved the way for Heavy, low paying labor that became the job description of the era for many immigrants. One such story of immigrants of the time is Thomas Bell's Out of this Furnace. This not only a story of three generations of Slovaks and the challenges they faced but also about the Americanization and evolving of

In spite of the fact that industrialization in the United States raised ways of life for some, it had a dull side. Corporate managers, in some cases alluded to as "burglar aristocrats," sought after exploitative and out of line business rehearses gone for taking out rivalry and expanding benefits. Assembly line laborers, large portions of them late migrants, were much of the time subjected to severe and hazardous working and living conditions. Political debasement enhanced legislators to the detriment of the lower and regular workers, who attempted to make a decent living. The crevice between "those who are well off" and "the poor" was augmenting.

Chavez describes how migrant workers today are seen as a threat to American employment and how they face discrimination. This quote form Chavez’s story similar to the discrimination the “Okies” face in The Grapes of Wrath. “The town men, little bankers, hated the Okies because there was nothing to gain from them. They had nothing (Steinbeck 233). This shows how Steinbeck’s portrayal of migrant workers is consistent with migrant workers today, by illustrating how in The Grapes of Wrath, the “Okies” are discriminated against because they are seen to have nothing by the townspeople. This is consistent with migrant workers today because they are seen as people who

However, when the men went on strike for fair pay, the mills fired them and found replacements. These replacements were those who were willing and desperate enough to work for low wages. Blount’s anger, caused by the lack of empathy and justice within the mill system, stems from his opposition to capitalism. Many believe that in society capitalism is used to exploit the poor for the benefit of the wealthy. When the poor demand more rights and fair pay, the wealthy move on and hire those willing to work for the standards set.

“Philadelphia Fire laments the impossibility of attaining this ideal in late twentieth-century urban America.” Start with the investigation of escaped orphan from the fire, Cudjoe, the protagonist of the novel revealed a decayed city. The narrative of this book is highly fragmented, especially in Part II, Wildman merged Cudjoe and himself to one narrator. In Part III, Wildman even created a mysterious character, J.B, to represent all the people saw the degeneration/fire. Through this way, Wildman generalized the narrations of different people in different time, elaborating personal experience to a phenomenon of a community. The book sank in a sense of despair and confusion. From Cudjoe to Philadelphia, everyone, every group and every community was stuck between the ideology of dream city and complicated reality. Hovering around the crossroad of past and future, People rot in the dissatisfaction of the current situation yet find no way to revive. Why couldn’t people jump out of the dilemma? What repressed the revolution for better life over and over again? Is the decay of this city in the story irresistible? Throughout the analysis of specific events and narrations in the book, we could categorize the causes of the degeneration to two sections: The conflict between ideology and needs to sustain the reality, and distribution of authority. With the compromise of these undesired situation, the deterioration dissolved in the root of the city, causing the irresistible decay.

Humanity has always been greedy since the beginning of our existence. Greed and Injustice motivated political and economic action, and influenced society. The Greed influenced people to be selfish, which led to the mistreatment of the less fortunate and the working class. The Industrialization Era allowed for a new opportunity to take advantage of the working class. The Industrial boom allowed for mass production, and many factories were built to enable for such thing to occur. With a large influx of immigrants coming into the United States, finding workers wasn’t difficult for these factory owners, but even better for them, these workers had not a clue to how poorly their working conditions were. These workers were expected to work incredibly long hours, they worked in dangerous and uncomfortable environments, and extremely low job security due to the amount immigrants willing to work. As these workers became more aware of how harsh these conditions were, unions were eventually formed. Through unions and protests, laws and regulations were created to improve the working life of the lower class. As the owners could no longer squeeze the market for the most profit, they began to outsource these factory jobs to other countries, dodging the regulations in the US, while they take advantage of poorer countries who do not have these regulations. Upton Sinclair’s Novel addresses the mistreatments that occurred in the early 1900’s, and people are disgusted by it, but also oblivious

Throughout the early 1900s, working-class men and women struggled to survive. Factory owners exploited their employees, requiring them to work unreasonably long hours in unsafe environments for little pay. Since working-class men and women were often poor, they relied on their jobs to generate an income. However, the conditions in which they were forced to work infuriated them. Machines in factories were typically unsafe, and workers hardly received any break time. As a result, working-class men and women began to form unions, like the Industrial Workers of the World, in an attempt to gain power over inconsiderate factory owners and fight for more rights. The work of unions to receive better treatment from their employers initiated the Worker’s

The Destiny of the Republic has taught me many things. Alexander Graham Bell struggled with people claiming themselves as the inventor of the telephone. “When [a] company began to attack Bell personally, suggesting that… [he] had stolen the idea, he set aside his hatred of lawsuits and fought back” (Millard 79). When a company tried to steal his invention and besmirch his name, Bell fought back and won. Bell taught me to always fight for what I believe in. I will do this by becoming informed about topics that are important to me, so that I can fight for my stance. I will gather more information about abortion, gun control, immigration, and many other topics so that I can defend my stance. Bell’s backbone and resistance has also taught me not to let anyone bully me or push me around. Bell stood up for himself and did not let his