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英文专家 请进 这个问题的资料 然后请帮我用英语回答这个问题一下 (因为我英文不好 >
英文专家 请进
这个问题的资料 然后请帮我用英语回答这个问题一下 (因为我英文不好 >
英文专家 请进 这个问题的资料 然后请帮我用英语回答这个问题一下 (因为我英文不好 >
John Henry is an American folk hero, notable for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, plays, and novels.
John Henry also served as a mythical representation of a group within the melting pot of the 19th-century working class. In the most popular version of the story, Henry is born into the world big and strong weighing 330 pounds. He grows to become the greatest "steel-driver" in the mid-century push to erect the railroads across the mountains to the West. When the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer to do the work of his mostly black driving crew, to save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: himself alone versus the steam hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but exhausted, collapses and dies.
In modern depictions John Henry is often portrayed as hammering down rail spikes, but older versions depict him as being born with a hammer in his hand; driving blasting holes into rock, part of the process of excavating railroad tunnels and cuttings.
In almost all versions of the story, John Henry is a black man and serves as a folk hero for all American working-class people, representing their marginalization during changes entering the modern age in America. While the character may or may not have been based on a real person, Henry became an important symbol of the working class. His story is usually seen as an archetypal illustration of the futility of fighting the technological progress that was evident in the 19th century upset of traditional physical labor roles. Some labor advocates interpret the legend as illustrating that even the most skilled workers of time-honored practices are marginalized when companies are more interested in efficiency and production than in their employees' health and well-being.[dubious – discuss] Although John Henry proved himself more powerful than the steam-drill, he worked himself to death and was replaced by the machine anyway. Thus the legend of John Henry has been a staple of American labor and mythology for well over one hundred years.