eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Scott Reynolds Nelson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 72
ISBN-13: 9781426300004
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Historian Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts how he came to discover the real John Henry, an African-American railroad worker who became a legend in the famous song.
Author: John Oliver Killens
Publisher: Little Brown
Published: 1975
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13: 9780316492782
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Retells the life of the legendary steel driver of early railroad days who challenged the steam hammer to a steel driving contest.
Author: John Garst
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2021-12-28
Total Pages: 283
ISBN-13: 1476686114
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The song "John Henry," perhaps America's greatest folk ballad, is about an African-American steel driver who raced and beat a steam drill, dying "with his hammer in his hand" from the effort. Most singers and historians believe John Henry was a real person, not a fictitious one, and that his story took place in West Virginia--though other places have been proposed. John Garst argues convincingly that it took place near Dunnavant, Alabama, in 1887. The author's reconstruction, based on contemporaneous evidence and subsequent research, uncovers a fascinating story that supports the Dunnavant location and provides new insights. Beyond John Henry, readers will discover the lives and work of his people: Black and white singers; his "captain," contractor Frederick Dabney; C. C. Spencer, the most credible eyewitness; John Henry's wife; the blind singer W. T. Blankenship, who printed the first broadside of the ballad; and later scholars who studied John Henry. The book includes analyses of the song's numerous iterations, several previously unpublished illustrations and a foreword by folklorist Art Rosenbaum.
Author: Alice Childress
Publisher: Perfection Learning
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780812418095
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Thirteen-year-old Benjie is well on his way to being hooked on heroin.
Author: Charles Bevel
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 62
ISBN-13: 9780573627996
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This sizzling revue of the blues and blues infused songs that changed the way the world hears the human heartbeat took New York by storm. Ravishing songs trace the evolution of the blues from Africa to Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago.
Author: Harlan Ellison
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2012-03-05
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 0575123753
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Love has ten thousand names and a million different faces. History will surely agree that America's most destructive contribution to 20th century living has been that damaged product called plastic romance. It twists and savages us. After a lifetime of lies about what love is supposed to be, are you finally angry and depressed enough to be part of a 'recall' on that shabby, mildewed merchandise? If so, join the remarkable Harlan Ellison as he dissects the soul and body of love in Our Time. In 16 scalpel-sharp stories that range from the legalized whorehouses of Nevada to the steaming lynch towns of Georgia, from the abortion mills of Tijuana to the sound stages of Hollywood, the writer whom Oui magazine charmingly named 'the perpetually angry young punk of the bizarre' rips the Saran-Wrap off love and hate and sin and twittering passion-to disclose the raw meat beneath. Here are sixteen poisoned arrows from fantasy's most improbable Cupid in which he presents a world of hearts & flowers guaranteed to revise your thinking about where love is found and how it looks.
Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 1937
Total Pages: 106
ISBN-13: 0359199143
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Tells a story about the strange relationship of two migrant workers who are able to realize their dreams of an easy life until one of them succumbs to his weakness for soft, helpless creatures and strangles a farmer's wife.
Author: Sheldon B. Kopp
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780671768386
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Daily meditations cover identity, life assessment, goals, self-esteem, fear, risk taking, humility, and freedom.
Author: Scott Reynolds Nelson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006-09-28
Total Pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780199741144
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The ballad "John Henry" is the most recorded folk song in American history and John Henry--the mighty railroad man who could blast through rock faster than a steam drill--is a towering figure in our culture. In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts the true story of the man behind the iconic American hero, telling the poignant tale of a young Virginia convict who died working on one of the most dangerous enterprises of the time, the first rail route through the Appalachian Mountains. Using census data, penitentiary reports, and railroad company reports, Nelson reveals how John Henry, victimized by Virginia's notorious Black Codes, was shipped to the infamous Richmond Penitentiary to become prisoner number 497, and was forced to labor on the mile-long Lewis Tunnel for the C&O railroad. Equally important, Nelson masterfully captures the life of the ballad of John Henry, tracing the song's evolution from the first printed score by blues legend W. C. Handy, to Carl Sandburg's use of the ballad to become the first "folk singer," to the upbeat version by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Attractively illustrated with numerous images, Steel Drivin' Man offers a marvelous portrait of a beloved folk song--and a true American legend.
