Out Of This Furnace Sparknotes

He includes various quotes from Carnegie and Frick, along with newspapers describing the aftermath of the strike. According to the New York World, the men who escaped left with “blood in streams rushing down the backs of their heads” (Standiford, 2005, p.177). There was no mercy shown to the Pinkerton, the strikers fulfilled as much as possible. (The Homestead Strike: Labor, Violence, and American Industry by Paul Kahan, is a book who agrees with Standiford’s argument of the Homestead Strike leading to the bloodiest battle between management and labor. Kahan states the strike was the turning point in American history that lead to the rapid decline of America’s steel unions. The Homestead Strike of 1892 by Arthur Burgoyne, agrees with Standiford’s argument about the importance of the Homestead Strike. He claims it was more than a local battle, it was the biggest battle between management and labor, watched by all over the

The book “Out of This Furnace” by Thomas Bell is about the lives of an immigrant family in the 1980s. The first part of the book is about the story of Kracha, ours first protagonist. Kracha left behind Slovakia to come to America for more opportunities. As Kracha settled in America, he got married to Elena and had three daughters. Life in the United States was rough for the Kracha’s family, it turns out it was just as difficult as in his homeland. Kracha tries different jobs and he found the commonalities between them, they are all low wage, and as the man ended up working in the Mills.

In 1892, workers at the Homestead steel plant near Pittsburg ambulated out on strike and mass chaos the lives of at least two Pinkerton detectives and one civilian, among many other laborers death (Document G). The Homestead strike not only failed

The American Dream: a cultural ethos that celebrates the cultural and individual pursuit of glorfied success. This preconceived concept is what defines our understanding for a better life in the United States. This notion is also what defines our pursuits and choices in order to get there. Truman Captote’s In Cold Blood sheds light on this socio-cultural concept as well as exemplifies the failure to achieve such a pursuit and the consequences made in order to get there.

Amid the late nineteenth century and mid-twentieth-century, poor working conditions in numerous industrial facilities drove specialists to battle for a better working condition. One of the many fights for better working conditions was known as the 'Homestead Strike of 1892' and was one of the greatest movement for labor rights. The Homestead Strike consisted of a battle between the Carnegie Steel Company, and the Amalgamated Association. The owner of the Carnegie Steel Company, Andrew Carnegie wanted to bring down the wages of steel workers after the cost of steel dropped in 1890.However, they confronted resistance from the steel laborer's union, and a contradiction over wages turned into a fight for power between the men responsible for the

The second section of Out of This Furnace is about the life of Mike Dobrejcak, and his experiences at Carnegie’s Steel Mills. Mike Dobrejcak, an immigrant who assimilated into American culture through learning about American history and learning English, was a man who appreciated politics, and worked to keep his family alive. Dobrejcak married Mary Kratcha and had four children, which made it difficult to survive on his steel mill income. Like most steel mill workers during the early 1900s, Dobrejcak faced dangerous working conditions with little pay, he and his family had to take in boarders to be able to save money, and he eventually was met with the cruel reality of death that many faced. Therefore section two should be title “Debt,

“Wages dropped and working conditions worsened” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). This is why many of the valued mill girls started to fight back. Lowell, a man who ran his own mill, gave young women a safe place to live and work in ,because they were all very valuable and important to his work. He provided a safe work environment and a secure place to sleep in at night. As a mill girl, having a safe place to live in was important, but textile mills began to drop the safe and respectable ways they ran things. This is one of the factors to what started the rise of mill girls against mill companies. During the Industrial Revolution, mill girls had been a valuable asset to companies and started to fight for women’s rights.

In the text The Great Gatsby, it is revealed how people become objects to each other in a pursuit for the American Dream. Firstly, the American Dream will be explored with an enquiry into how it is represented throughout the novel. Secondly, the role the protagonist Jay Gatsby plays in representing the American Dream will be explored. Thirdly, the role of Daisy Buchanan will be explored, with specific reference to her objectification by both Gatsby and Tom Buchanan. Fourthly, further examples of reification throughout the novel will be explored to further understand how the characters become objects for each other. Finally, the role Nick Carraway plays in exposing these characters and how he is also an emblem of the American Dream will be explored.

The Lowell system made a new transition in American history that explored working and labor conditions in the new industrial factories in the United States. In 1813, Boston Associates a group of capitalists “constructed the first textile mill” in Waltham, Massachusetts. “In 1822, the Boston Associates developed a new water-powered mill at a village along the Merrimack River, which they rename Lowell” (America, 286). In the beginning, the system seemed promising but years later, multiple problems such as restricted living, dangerous living condition, low wages started to appear.

Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell is the story of a Slovak family's immigration to America. The story talks about a family struggles as they make their way from Hungary to America. The story of three generations of the Kracha family shows the first immigrant in the family, George Kracha to the third generation who is Dobie Dobrejcak. It starts with George Kracha walking from his village in Hungary to board a ship. He spends his money for a party for a woman and arrives in New York with fifty cents in his pockets. He walks from New York to White Haven, Pennsylvania where his relatives work for the railroad. He begins his work career in America. He eventually follows his friends and relatives to work in the steel mills. The work is hard and the hours are long for subsistence wages.

The Knights of Labor was an organized secret society which begun in the 1869 composed of a group of skilled and unskilled workers

In the narrative of the American Dream, there are three main steps: starting at the bottom, working hard, and gaining successful. In “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman, “I, Too” by Langston Hughes, and “A Forest Walk” from A Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Whitman, Hughes, and Hawthorne use the motif of building and work to illuminate the mainstream and marginalized viewpoints of the American Dream’s effect on society.

The American Dream can be defined as the belief that every citizen of America should have an equal opportunity to achieve success through enough work and perseverance. This dream, however, is nothing more than an impossible concept. As residents of the United States know all too well, bills aren’t paid with the amount of ambition you have. No work of literature has ever scrutinized the American Dream as much as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. By using a great deal of symbols such as the Valley of Ashes, the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, the books within Gatsby’s library and the green light, Fitzgerald is able to communicate the fictitious nature of the American Dream.

The American Dream is the belief that any person regardless of background is open to equal opportunities which allows to them to attain all aspirations and their definition of success. George and Lennie both want to own their own farm. The farm will be 10 acres with a windmill, a small shack and their own house. They will grow fruit trees, tend their vegetable patches and raise their own livestock. This will allow them to ‘live offa the fat of the lan’’ Lennie’s ultimate and persistent dream is that on the plot they can build a rabbit hutch where Lennie can tend to them. George dreams of a better life where he can be his own boss. He wants to be independent and not take orders from anyone else. Many migrant workers in the 1920s had a similar dream to George and Lennie. Many of these workers wanted to obtain these goals through hard work and sacrifice, instead of it being handed to them. The sad reality was that like George and Lennie, the majority do not ever live the dream.

America’s Declaration of Independence provides that people have the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. This concept of an ‘American Dream’ provides that in the land of ‘hope and opportunity’, it is possible for anyone to get rich as long as they are willing to work hard for it. However, in his novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck demonstrates that the ‘American Dream’ was an impossible ideal for most people. The ‘impossibility of the American Dream’ is one of the major themes in Steinbeck’s novel. The other major theme that will be discussed is that of ‘loneliness’. These two themes are supported by various motifs, notably the contrast between the ‘strong and weak’.