Linh      

Linh Manh Nguyen

HIST 1301

Baines Alton

February 18, 2009

Out of this furnace

“Out of this furnace” is Thomas Bell’s most compelling achievement. The author, Thomas Bell grew up in the steel mill town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. His novel reflects the hardships faced by his family during the time when the mills ruled the area. All events in Bell's novel are fictional, however, they create a very realistic plot and are based somewhat upon a true story. “Out of This Furnace” is the story of a Slovak family's immigration to America, it focuses on the life of immigrant workers struggling to survive in the "new country."  In this novel, the author refutes capitalistic ideals and the lack of a republican form of government by showing the struggles and success of immigrant steelworkers. The story of three generations of the Kracha family is given in the novel from the first immigrant in the family, George Kracha to the third generation represented by Dobie Dobrejcak. This story still stands as a fresh and extraordinary accomplishment. The reader follows the family as they make their way in America.

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The story begins in the 1880s with the ingenuous career of Djuro Kracha, the first generation immigrant of the family from Austria-Hungary, who sails to the US to find work and start a new life. He began as a worker in a steel mill - at ten cents an hour. George truly was full of the hope and promise that America's freedom and riches represented to immigrants from around the world. It tracks his arrival from the old country as he walked from New York to White Haven, his later migration to the steel mills of Braddock, and his eventual ...

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