Origins: John Henry

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: GUEST,frosty
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 06:06 PM

Hi Was just floating about the neighbourhood, looking for info on John Henry and ended up here. I only wanted to know who he was and have spent 2 hours on this damn machine(mild technophobe)anyway a few things occured to me 1: Song used to be a way of passing on news as a lot of people couldn't read, and an event like this was newsworthy. 2: I think it endures as a popular song as it is as relevant today as it was then and every one loves the underdog, at least they do around here. 3: Finaly if Mr Finn is right and JH died of love making it's nice to know that not only did he die a Legend but also happy. frosty

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 12:02 PM

Excellent thread, just what I really enjoy.

I would quibble with the interpretation raised in the original posting that this song symbolizes the overseer's inhumanity to the common worker. This song, at least the versions I grew up with, all seemed to indicate that the boss wanted to automate something that the worker thought he could do better, so he tried, won, and died - a Pyrrhic (sp?) victory. But it was always the common worker's choice - not imposed from above. In fact, the overseer could quite properly have prevented John Henry from even attempting the contest - but he didn't.

Also, since I had so many different versions, even some with different names (Henry Clay is one) - I always figured this was one of those based-on-a-true-incident-that-grew-larger-than-life-in-the-telling. I figured there really was some poor soul who tried to outdo a steam drill back when they were first being invented; whether he won or not, died or not, or was named John Henry or not, I wouldn't even hazard a guess.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: voyager
Date: 08 Aug 00 - 12:14 PM

The Origins of John Henry (Cub Scout Version) --------------------------------------------- A few years back, while playing CUB SCOUT JEOPARDY with our local pack, I created the Category TALL TALES.

Q1 - This Lumberjack rode a blue ox and levelled a forest with one swing of the ax. A - (Paul Bunyon) - kids didn't know

Q2 - This railroad engineer stayed in the locomotive and warned passengers of the impending train wreck. A - (Casey Jones) - kids didn't know

Q3 - This steel-driver won a contest against a steam engine carving a tunnel thru the side of a mountain.

A - HARRIET TUBMAN!! (kids knew this answer)

voyager fsgw ghetto east silver spring, maryland

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: GUEST,Matthew
Date: 08 Aug 00 - 11:53 AM

Darren,

I can't help you with your quest, but I did want to mention something to you. Just as an FYI.

Disney's next release will be a short (8-minutes, I think) animated film of John Henry. Not to imply that anything done by the mouse comes anywhere close to historical accuracy, or even accepted fictional accuracy. But there you go.

Matthew. (knew the "Animation Tour" at Disney/MGM last month would pay off)

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: GUEST,darren haggar
Date: 08 Aug 00 - 10:50 AM

I'm in the process of designing a cover on a book about the myth of John Henry. Apparently there was an american postage stamp featuring a portrait or something ...? Does anybody know where I can get my hands any images that might be cover materail ...for instance, pictures of railworkers from that era?

Subject: Doin' web thing (the ballad of John Henry)
From: DaviD
Date: 05 Mar 99 - 10:26 AM

Here's the web meta search page: askjeeves.com Or, if you're typing by hand (rather than cut and paste) http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/98/Dec/13/national/HNRY13.htm

Computerist's version: (going down the listings) http://the-brother-of.cyrus.org/jhenry.htm Another parody: http://apk.net/~drushel/jhenry.html

Lyrics:http://www.usscouts.scouter.com/songs/songbk1c.html children's songbook: http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~orono/collaborative/sing.html

1995 nat'l Public Radio backround piece http://www.droop.com/JohnHenry/jhIndex.html subsites:looks like a nice record album cover picture and sociological note on popularity http://www.droop.com/JohnHenry/Text/Legend.html discography: http://www.droop.com/JohnHenry/Text/Music.html

Here's the primary site (and a clue as to a good search engine!) if anyone wnats to do more digging. http://www.askjeeves.com/AskJeeves.asp?ask=Sing+me+the+ballad+of+John+Henry&site_name=Jeeves&scope=web&metasearch=yes&frames=yes&qSource=0&origin=0&r=x&AskJeeves.x=15&AskJeeves.y=13

I'm still looking the lyrics per se (on-line text form but have run out of tiem (how typical! :( )

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 05 Mar 99 - 10:05 AM

The story of the man who beats the machine that's replacing him seems to be fairly common in Britain in this century. It's usually the "little" man, rather than the hero; postmen seem to be a particular favourite, for some reason - out-sorting the expensive new sorting machine. I've no idea whether there's a conscious awareness of the John Henry story on the part of the authors, but I suspect it's a motif that goes back a lot further in history and culture. (Not that I'm any expert!)

Steve

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From:
Date: 05 Mar 99 - 09:19 AM

Good morning to you all. I'm takeing a stupid Afram Eng31 (jr.college) course which gives me less one hour to discuss, digest, and disgust this item. Here are some websites. The White House prison archeological dig reference from above is: (click)

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From:
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 12:43 PM

In the 1870's, if I read Land Where the Blues Began correctly, the African-American railroad worker held a prestigious position within his culture.

"Babe when you marry, marry a railroad man.
Everyday a Sunday dollar in your hand."

If we take this, then John Henry would already be somewhat of a hero in his community. And John's job would be the source of his standing. In that sense, John would be loyal to his employer, no matter how oppressive, because the employer was the source of John's status and perhaps his self-definition. If I remember my sociology correctly this is a common situation for both slave and worker. In this manner, the song is reflective of the culture from which it has arisen.

I think it is more significant that this song is beloved by African- and European- Americans for the overcoming of the mechanical drill (read industrialism, progress, etc.). It endures as a folk song, because the folk identify with the oppression of modernization and the belittlement of the work of a man or woman.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Cary Ginell
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 11:03 AM

Was wondering if anyone had seen an article by Linda Wheeler of the Washington Post. It appeared in the Los Angeles Times issue of 12/26/98. Wheeler reported that a William & Mary researcher discovered evidence that a prisoner, buried at Virginia Penitentiary, could have been the "real" John Henry. References in the variants of the ballad to "the White House" do not refer to the President's home in the nation's capital, but to the prison hospital, which was commonly known as such. I don't have the article handy, but it can be downloaded from the LA Times archive website for $1.50.

Cary Ginell Sound Thinking Music Research [e-mail]

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bruce O.
Date: 18 Feb 98 - 10:31 AM

I take facts to be texts of known provinance, and what can be proved directly by them. Interpretations (or speculation based on them) of the even the same set of facts often vary widely. Admittedly, subconsciously perhaps, no one is totally objective, even sometimes when it comes to deciding what the facts really are. But some try much harder than others to get as close as possible to 'truth'.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Peter
Date: 18 Feb 98 - 03:22 AM

Bruce, I wonder if we can't use somewhat more precise language than "facts" and "speculation", or at least less loaded terms. There ought not be any doubt that it is a "fact" that folk-tales incorporate generic elements -- motifs -- that link them to a specific tradition within the greater genre. It is, for example, a "fact" that stories about King Arthur, Charlemagne, Tsar Alexander I, and Nero all employ two related motifs: 1. the culture hero or divinity who has not died but is still alive and 2. the culture hero or divinity who is expected to return at the proper time (Thompson, 1953, motifs A570 and A580). It is an act of interpretation (the connotations of which I prefer to "speculation") to say that these motifs transcend (a bad word) the particular story in which they are present to establish a relationship with other stories of the same typology. I don't see why it is not also interpretation (or, if you prefer, "speculation") to determine which songs of a collection are forged.

I am trying to find a fundamental difference between my speculation and other, more legitimate kinds of interpretation. The only distinction I can come up with is that the units/objects of analysis are, in my case, more abstract than in other cases. But -- I plead with you! -- heuristical tools like the notion of "genre" reflect reality. These terms I am throwing around exist in the real world. We ought to recognize their import and incorporate considerations of them into how we talk about the music. What I do with them in particular is another matter -- that's where my interpretation might be flawed.

I apologize if I am being overbearing (and it is awful if I am being rude -- I confess ignorance of forum etiquette), but this is one my most desperately ground axes. There is so much to learn about the music if we can think about it in these terms. Alan Dundes, someone I've seen you cite in the past, is a proponent of the "symbolic" reading of such tales as these, and it seems to me that he provides very satisfying (and believable) readings that profoundly deepen our understandings of the tales by placing them in a cultural (read:symbolic) context.

But, on a lighter note: Art, I very much enjoyed your reading of "John Henry". It shows what we can do without resorting to the sort of sorcery I tend to employ. (Although, I am afraid that I cannot allow either that you have left the drawbridge of speculation for the castle of facts.) And, Barry, I am 100 pages into "The Land Where the Blues Began." Thank you, and consider your good deed for the day accomplished.

Peter

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Feb 98 - 09:44 PM

Art, could've been born a slave, prior to the war between the states many blacks were born free men & worked at different trades, the best of them being a sailor or waterman of some kind. In many ways life could be easier than after the war when Jim Crow settled in, & they were free but with out any/many means of earning a living. Working trains or rails after the war was one of the few trades along with building the levees that allowed them the means of survival while offering some sense of independence & self worth, although in many cases & areas it was another form of slavery & conditions were not only dangerous but deadly. The hollow victory is the tragic side of the legend/tale, but I often wonder if JH was the first black folk hero to be sung about because prior to that time, the living heros ( Boston Massacre, Dartmore Prison {sp?}, New York's most honorable Boarding House Master), would not have survived if sung about much less have their stories told/sung in the climate of the times. Peter, I feel the same way about your window into a culture, as you mention above, giving more understanding into the roots of the songs & people, otherwise do we trace songs to their origins just for the exercise? Sorry for the ramble. Barry

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Feb 98 - 08:57 PM

If the Big Bend tunnel was 1870 J.H. was obviously born a slave with ALL that that entails. He was making a wage of some kind for the first time in his life. He was getting to keep the money for the first time in his life also. (So were the other guys.) Within that frame he had become the BEST at doing his job and he was the one apparently chosen by the others to go up against the steam drill/automation that threatened the few bits of free life that Afro-Americans were allowed to hold onto as their own. When the drill broke his tremendous effort beat the machine BUT he died in that effort. So it was a hollow victory----just like all the other hollow victories Black folk have seemingly won only to find frustration after the win proves to be less than expcted.

Also, I'm reminded of a short and favorite tale of mine. Afellow walking home in mud. Every time he takes one step he falls back two steps. Eventually he turned around, went the other way, and finally got where he wanted to be!!! (Art Thieme)

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bruce O.
Date: 15 Feb 98 - 12:51 PM

Sorry, that should have been Peter, not Bert that I was addressing on that last posting.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bruce O.
Date: 15 Feb 98 - 11:57 AM

All well and good Bert. But lets make clear where facts end and speculation begins. As to old songs the oldest known is still the broadside printed in the early 1900 obtained by Guy Johnson. This is the first item in the 'A' section of references to song copies given by Norm Cohen. In all Norm gave about 13 pages of reference to other copies in 'The Long Steel Rail', pp 76-89, and many pages of references to "Nine Pound Hammer".

I asked Norm Cohen to take a look at this thread, in order to see if he had turned up anything new in the line of information since his book was published in 1981.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: chet w
Date: 15 Feb 98 - 11:33 AM

When John Henry was a little baby boy Sittin' on his daddy's knee His daddy picked him up and he threw him on the floor And he said, "This baby's wet all over me" Lord, Lord, said "This baby'w wet all over me"

Irreverently, Chet W.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Earl
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 08:23 AM

A man ain't nuthin but a man.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Peter
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 03:32 AM

Barry, I really appreciate your post; it's exactly the sort of trail I wanted to be put on. I want to disagree (politely, I hope) with those who resist any folkloric reading of what is, after all, a folk song. John Henry may very well have been an actual historical figure, and the song may very well take it's plot from an actual historical event. And, further, any pursuit of the song down that track may be futile, giving us only phantoms and vague, unfounded suppositions. But a folk-hero's nature stands halfway between history and myth, and there are other, profitable ways to ask questions about the song. Invariably, these stories incorporate traditional, generic elements (one example is the trickster figure, mentioned by Barry) which are added to the story. These elements constitute much of the meaning of the song (perhaps the primary meaning?), and recognizing them does not depend on being able to identify a certain Alabaman. "John Henry" is interesting as a song -- and it's great fun to sing -- but I think it is most interesting as a window to a culture that, for me anyway, is hard to know. In asking the question I did, I was really asking less about John Henry, whoever he may be, than about the culture that produced the song. So I'm not sure it's wrong to stuff it with symbolism (which I hope isn't a dirty word): symbols are what a culture uses to communicate with itself. I myself mistrust Marxist and Freudian readings of songs from cultures which had never read Marx or Freud, but (with respect to Marxist readings, anyway) people did resent oppression, and try to resist it through song, before Das Kapital. I appreciate the help some of you brought to this post. I am inded very interested in when people started singing about "John Henry" and what the specific circumstances of that version of what I suspect is a very old song were. It is unfortunate that those hard facts are lost to us (though I'm not surprised to learn it). But I don't know why the ways in common a culture has of telling a story and what elements constitute that story and what tradition that story is embedded in, just because they are more abstract, need be any "softer".

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Norm Cohen
Date: 13 Feb 98 - 01:43 AM

I don't know of anything on the origins of the "John Henry" ballads beyond what I wrote in Long Steel Rail, but there is a more recent bibliography for those inclined to check it out on their own: Brett Williams: "John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1983). It's easy to attach all sorts of psycho-sociological theories to the ballad--including Marxist and Freudian interpretations; but as for hard facts about the origins of the story, we'll never get any closer than Guy Johnson and Louis Chappel did in the 1920s when they tried to interview anyone who claimed to remember anything about the building of the Big Bend (actually "Great Bend") tunnel to which the legend was most frequently attached. Which was not very close.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bruce O.
Date: 12 Feb 98 - 02:28 PM

Bill above is along the right track. Norm Cohen in 'The Long Steel Rail', p. 574-6, 1981, discusses the various theories, and says he can't be confident of the answers. He cites many early song copies including recordings and the work of all those mentioned above. (It may or may not have grown out of some version of "Nine Pound Hammer").

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 12 Feb 98 - 02:11 PM

Archie Green at one time had some information which placed the actual John Henry in Alabama. He asked me to work on the search with him, but we never came up with anything other than an attributive reference which, by the nature of folk music, is more likely to be wrong than right. Bert's information is most likely correct. Alabama will just have to be content with Railroad Bill as a ballad hero.

I suspect that you're better off not trying to stuff the piece with a lot of symbolism, or to read anything much into it other than what the words suggest: a kind of American Luddite ballad about a man whose pride in his work and whose ego caused him to challenge the advent of mechanization.

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Feb 98 - 10:16 AM

2 books are dedicated to John "John Henry: Tracking Down A Negro Ledgend" by Guy B Johnson (Chapel Hill, 1929) 7 "John Henry: A Folklore Study" by Chappell (Jena, 1933). Lomax credits Chappell with the tracking of the major folk hero's roots & any facts that have survived as the best that'll ever happen with John Henry. "He (Chappell) pinpointed the scene of the ballard to the Big Bend Tunnel on the C & O, R.R. in the West Virginna Mnts. about 1870. 1 1/4 mile long, the Big Bend was the biggest tunnel job attempted by man up to that date". It appears John started out as a mere 6' & 200 lbs, who could out sing & work any other man (sounds like Leadbelly & John L) on the job, swinging a 20lb hammer, when 10lb was the norm, drilling 2 holes 7' deep beating the staem drill which drove only 1 hole, 9', not dying from the race but probaly later from the frequent cave-ins, when his hammer made the mnt shake (sexual), again giving rise to belief that he died not from being overworked but from love making.. Lomax belives that John Henry is a decendant of Old John the trickster slave & that the origins of the song springs from the old Hammer song & Lass Of Roch Royal, giving it sexual & magical powers. Just a brief run down from mostly Lomax, but if you read Jackson's 'Wake Up Dead Man' & Lomax's 'Land Where The Blues Began', it gives many reasons for the rise of folk heros within an oppressed community & the relationships developed between worker & worksong & how the labor is seen by themselves & others. Good Luck, Barry

Subject: RE: The origins of john Henry
From: Bert
Date: 12 Feb 98 - 09:39 AM

I have always assumed it to be about a song against the mechanization of industry. Here's another song about a guy whose job was taken over bt "Mechanical Power".

manura

Subject: The origins of John Henry
From: Peter Turner
Date: 12 Feb 98 - 02:09 AM

Does anyone know what "John Henry" is really about? It's first impression is of the power of the human spirit and the often inspiring nature of tragedy. This interpretation makes us take the song at its word. But I've heard it argued that we should be more skeptical in interpreting the lyrics, that the song actually works in favor of the railroad bosses and against the men who work for them. In this view, it justifies the torturous labor the men are asked to do, and it creates a situation in which a man being worked to death is a hero. It is, in fact, not a song that many politically conscious rail workers would enjoy. There are all sorts of possibilities it never allows, like John Henry resenting being overburdened, or John Henry refusing to work himself to death. Especially helpful would be if someone can trace the history of the song for me, but any thoughts at all would be appreciated, enjoyed. Thank you.