Title: “John Henry: The American Folk Hero”

By: Stephen Harris

Medium:  Urethane plastic and enamel paint

Size: L35” x W35” x D12”

Description: This sculpture is my adaptation of the folk story, John Henry.  The traditional story of John Henry is set at the dawn of the industrial revolution.  The Story tells the tale of John Henry, one of the strongest and fastest men to ever drive down railroad spikes.  In the story John Henry and his crew arrive at the base of a mountain, with no option of laying train tracks around or over the mountain they begin to dig a tunnel.  Soon word arrives that a new steam drill has been invented and that it will do the work faster than any man.  John Henry, not wanting himself and fellow workers to loose their jobs, proposes a challenge.  He will tunnel through the mountain faster than the steam drill.  After a long and grueling race John Henry emerges on the other side of the mountain, beating the machine, only to die minutes later from stress and physical exhaustion.  Although John Henry proved himself more efficient than the steam drill, he worked himself to death and was replaced by the machine anyway.

            In my version of the story John Henry does not die, but continues to fight for all working-class people who feel marginalized by a fast-paced technology.  He holds his heavy hammer high, forging forward.  In his hand he holds a child, symbolizing the future.   The child looks over his shoulder gazing back on a city built from human labor.  Technology is represented not with a steam drill but with a computer-like monster.  The monster’s tail is wrapped around a broken scythe which symbolizes one of the first major industries to be affected by technology.  Held above the computer in its grasp is a hammer which is in the process of being snapped.  The hammer represents the working-class person whose livelihood may be in danger of becoming obsolete.