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Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America Paperback – June 30, 1976

by Thomas Bell (Author), David P. Demarest (Afterword)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 421 ratings
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Out of This Furnace is Thomas Bell’s most compelling achievement.  Its story of three generations of an immigrant Slovak family -- the Dobrejcaks -- still stands as a fresh and extraordinary accomplishment.

The novel begins in the mid-1880s with the naive blundering career of Djuro Kracha. 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, Pennsylvania, and his eventual downfall through foolish financial speculations and an extramarital affair. The second generation is represented by Kracha’s daughter, Mary, who married Mike Dobrejcak, a steel worker. Their decent lives, made desperate by the inhuman working conditions of the mills, were held together by the warm bonds of their family life, and Mike’s political idealism set an example for the children. Dobie Dobrejcak, the third generation, came of age in the 1920s determined not to be sacrificed to the mills. His involvement in the successful unionization of the steel industry climaxed a half-century struggle to establish economic justice for the workers.

Out of This Furnace is a document of ethnic heritage and of a violent and cruel period in our history, but it is also a superb story. The writing is strong and forthright, and the novel builds constantly to its triumphantly human conclusion.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    424 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    University of Pittsburgh Press
  4. Publication date
    June 30, 1976
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0822952734
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0822952732
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“In a powerful novel that spans three generations of a Slovak family, Thomas Bell vividly tells the story of immigrants and their children who lived, toiled, and died in America's mill towns.”
—Journal of American Ethnic History

"I use Out of This Furnace as a first reading in my American History course because it provides an overview of the period, introduces the idea of industrialization from a worker point of view, and provides insights into immigrant ethnic communities in twentieth-century America."
—Lawrence Levine, George Mason University



"A wonderful book to use for a survey of American history."
—Mary Frederickson, University of Alabama

From the Back Cover

The novel begins in the mid-1880s with the naive blundering career of Djuro Kracha. 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 downfall through foolish financial speculations and an extramarital affair.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Pittsburgh Press; 1st edition (June 30, 1976)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 424 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0822952734
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0822952732
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 421 ratings

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Thomas Bell

Thomas Bell

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
421 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Michael J. Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars Old but informative--three generations to assimilation
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2023
Verified Purchase
The book was published in 1940. The author was perhaps 35 years old at the time. He describes three generations of a family that originated in a village in Slovakia. His family, and others were from a small village in Slovakia. They all wound up in the steel mills at Braddock Pennsylvania. The Irish laborers, who had come before them, derided them as "Hunkies". The writer describes the experiences of the first two generations (1885 or to 1920) in a way loosely based on his own family. Steel mills are dangerous places and people get killed or severely injured.

The male in the third generation becomes a union organizer and that part of the story is not based on the writer's own family experience. Rather it's based on the notes and other information from a different person who was in fact a union organizer. The story ends with the birth of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Industrial workers such as the Hunkies "didn't get no respect" from the American Federation of Labor which favored skilled craftsmen as union members.

All of these novels about the immigrant experience of various ethnic groups are interesting. It might be Rolvaag;s "Giants of The Earth" [Norwegians on the prairie" or more recently Karl Marlantes "Deep River' Finnish immigrants in the logging industry in Southwest Washington state. But each them has a lot to say about the lived experience of different groups.

They are also reflective of their time. Out of This Furnace was published in 1940. The third generation "Hunkie" is now assimilated--he expresses the American creed with optimism which might appear a bit much in these days. But it's a good book, a good story, and worth the reader's time.
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Paul Haspel
4.0 out of 5 stars Over three generations, a journey from adversity to hope
Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2012
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Thomas Bell's "Out of This Furnace" is a powerful saga that chronicles the struggles and triumphs of three generations of the Dobrejcaks, a Slovak-American family in the Pittsburgh-area steel-making city of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Bell's clean, disciplined, no-nonsense prose style complements well his story of people who cope with entrenched ethnic discrimination while seeking to build their own American dream within the dangerous world of the Braddock steel mills. Because Bell drew upon his own family's history (his original family name was Belejcak), he writes with authenticity and verisimilitude about the steel towns -- not just the specifics of a mill's operation, but also the grim look of a steel-making community and the strained social dynamic between supervisors and workers.

In Bell's multi-generational saga, the immigrant first generation is personified by George Kracha, who comes to America, struggles to cope with the bewildering transition from old-country traditions to a new life in the United States, and makes some bad choices that cancel out the initial promise of his life in America. The second generation is represented by Mike and Mary Dobrejcak, who work hard and do their best but run up against tragic circumstance. And the third generation is embodied by Dobie, a young man who learns, through becoming involved in labor activism, how to fight back effectively against the injustices of 20th-century American industrial life.

Pittsburgh-area readers may particularly enjoy the way in which this novel chronicles part of the history of Western Pennsylvania. This University of Pittsburgh edition of "Out of This Furnace" includes a helpful afterword by Pennsylvania literature scholar David Demarest of Carnegie-Mellon University. I think that Bell's ancestors who labored so hard in the steel mills would have taken pride in the spirit of conscientious workmanship with which Bell crafted this strong and effective novel.
6 people found this helpful
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M L Hill
5.0 out of 5 stars Very strong writing, good story, relevant today as much as it was in the 1940's
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
I bought this book primarily for its historical content, and I was absolutely delighted by how much I enjoyed it. I became involved in the interesting characters and powerful description immediately, and really couldn't put the book down. What impressed me beyond the story itself was the quality of the writing. Thomas Bell is an amazing writer! His level of detail is exquisite. He crafts a good character and is not afraid to make those characters flawed. The raw honesty of his language is remarkably contemporary.

Yes, this is a historical novel about immigration in the late 19C and early 20C. Based on the author's own family story, its historical accuracy is impressive. I can see from other reviewers that this has been used in history courses; this book truly has the authority to be taught and discussed in any class on immigration history. The message it bears, about how the Slovak immigrants were treated, is very relevant to us today. So many groups have come into the USA and been treated as less than human, despite the fact that their labor fueled the large American industrial corporations and brought them great profit. Every United States citizen who traces her or his heritage to an immigrant needs to read this book.
2 people found this helpful
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