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Who was the real John Henry? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians, choo too. Thank you as
0:30
Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. For super producer mister
0:35
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Chug a chugga.
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Speaker 2: Higher locomotive guys, Ben, that's you. I'm no, I did
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Speaker 2: I do dig trains. I don't know what it is.
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Speaker 2: There's something in the mind of the young boy that
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Speaker 2: just makes you predisposed to digging machines. But I've mentioned
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Speaker 2: multiple times, Ben, as i've got a little older, I've
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Speaker 2: even first they're kind of gone down the rabbit hole
1:02
Speaker 2: of engineering and you know, clockwork stuff. I mean, I
1:05
Speaker 2: think you and I are both a little bit into
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Speaker 2: watches and all of that stuff these days. But yeah,
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Speaker 2: I get it, man, trains, locomote is all the moving parts,
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Speaker 2: the engineering of it all.
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Speaker 3: It's fascinating to me.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no Brown. I've been bullying
1:18
Speaker 1: where We've got to mention one thing at the top
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Speaker 1: of Max. I don't want to put you on the
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Speaker 1: spot too much.
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Speaker 3: Max.
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Speaker 1: Not too long ago, Max, Max Williams, you and I
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Speaker 1: got involved in some pretty cool conversations about model trains
1:36
Speaker 1: which you were. Pater Familius is a big fan of Oh.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a mild train collector.
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Speaker 2: He loves it by the way, that means fare right, yes,
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Speaker 2: cool google, or like patriarchical gout it. We had a
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Speaker 2: episode back in twenty twenty four March twenty twenty four
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Speaker 2: called back to the Choo.
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Speaker 3: I'm not going to try this one vent. We had
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Speaker 3: an episode about model trains, back to the Tuture.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: You know who else is really in the Monel trans
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Speaker 2: two people? Sebastian Bach from skid Row. There is an
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Speaker 2: episode of Trailer Park Boys where he is featured and
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Speaker 2: Neil Young. But I also just found out something else
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Speaker 2: interesting about Sebastian Bach. He briefly was in a Broadway
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Speaker 2: production of Jesus Christ Superstar and he got fired because
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Speaker 2: he was horrible.
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Speaker 3: He did the skid Row scream.
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Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say he just kept going
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Speaker 1: to his trailer to play with train trailer.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, apparently I saw. You can find clips of
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Speaker 3: it if you want.
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Speaker 2: I was blissfully unaware of this, and it is fascinating
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Speaker 2: because he looks like he is in a very different
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Speaker 2: production than the rest of the cast.
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Speaker 3: Let's just leave it there.
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Speaker 1: Another thing that a lot of us are blissfully unaware
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Speaker 1: of in American society today is this house Yon era
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Speaker 1: of tall tales, larger than life American heroes from folklore
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Speaker 1: andrely guys. Remember we did a deep dive into a
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Speaker 1: heartwarming i'll call him thoroughly eccentric dude called Johnny Appleseed
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Speaker 1: or John Chapman.
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Speaker 2: Hmm. And I think we mentioned in that episode the
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Speaker 2: Disney shorts that featured a lot of these folks, and
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Speaker 2: there actually was a John Henry one that it came
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Speaker 2: a good bit later. The Johnny Appleseed one is quite
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Speaker 2: a bit older. But I believe the Walt Disney Animation
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Speaker 2: Studio released a short film detailing the myth, the urban legend,
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Speaker 2: the folkloric tale of John Henry the Steel Driving Man,
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Speaker 2: back in two thousand.
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Speaker 1: That is correct, and today we are tackling another story.
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Speaker 1: This is important to me. I think it's important to
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Speaker 1: all of us in the West especially. It's a story
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Speaker 1: that only grows more relevant as Americans and the world
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Speaker 1: overall grow increasingly concerned about the implications and consequences of
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Speaker 1: l m's AI and automation. It's the legend of John Henry,
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Speaker 1: most famous to a lot of grade school kids for
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Speaker 1: a ballad, and Nola, we're okay with it. I'd love
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Speaker 1: to share just a snippet of a version of this song.
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Speaker 3: Oh, surely it's in the public domain at this point.
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Speaker 3: Let's do it. When John Henry was a little baby boy,
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Speaker 3: you get hold him in the bomb of your hand.
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Speaker 3: He gave a long and lost man. What does it
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Speaker 3: mean to be a steel driving man? Ben? What does
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Speaker 3: it mean?
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Speaker 1: Ah? Yes, yes, this is a great question, which that's
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Speaker 1: one of the questions we can solve in today's episode, Nolan.
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Speaker 1: But we may not be able to solve all of
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Speaker 1: the questions about the legend of John Henry. As we'll see,
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Speaker 1: there's a mystery afoot, or, if you prefer, fellow ridiculous historians,
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Speaker 1: a mystery on the rails. What say we start with
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Speaker 1: the legend.
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Speaker 2: I certainly heard this tale when I was a youth
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Speaker 2: in primary school, though it may be something that has been,
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Speaker 2: you know, moved away from a little bit in modern times.
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Speaker 2: Not one hundred percent sure, I couldn't say, but it
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Speaker 2: seems like that's entirely likely, because I don't think that
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Speaker 2: a lot of the younger generation know much about John Henry,
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Speaker 2: the steel driving man. So according to the tale, he
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Speaker 2: was born a slave in eighteen forty.
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Speaker 3: It was freed after the Civil War.
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Speaker 2: John then found work as a steel driver for the
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Speaker 2: Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. So I believe been a
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Speaker 2: steel driver is someone that hammers the kind of I
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Speaker 2: guess you could call them supports field sort of railroad
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Speaker 2: ties right into solid rock.
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Speaker 3: Well, they're not the same as the ties.
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Speaker 2: These are more for like building out the tunnels that
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Speaker 2: the trains would go into. So these would be like
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Speaker 2: having to hammer steal into the solid rock to help
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Speaker 2: build the supports for the railroads, you know, for hollowing
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Speaker 2: out these tunnels and mountains.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you hollow out the tunnels by hammering into the rock,
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Speaker 1: creating a cavity wherein explosives of some sort are inserted,
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Speaker 1: which blows up more space right into whatever you're trying
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Speaker 1: to delve through. And then you move forward a little
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Speaker 1: bit at a time in these harsh weather conditions, and
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Speaker 1: then you blow it up again, and then you do
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Speaker 1: it again and again, add nauseum, until you get through
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Speaker 1: the mountain. And our buddy John Henry is widely renowned,
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Speaker 1: according to the legend, as the strongest, most efficient, best,
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Speaker 1: gosh darned steel driver in all the area. We do
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Speaker 1: have to mention that in real life steel driving at
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Speaker 1: this time in the eighteen hundreds, you're working in two
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Speaker 1: man teams. Like how a sniper as a spotter. If
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Speaker 1: you're a steel driver, you've got the hammer, but you've
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Speaker 1: got a second guy called the shaker, and they are
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Speaker 1: I feel like they don't get enough praise because they
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Speaker 1: have to crouch pretty close to the hole with a
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Speaker 1: little chisel and turn the drill after each time the
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Speaker 1: hammer blows. So it's like if you have ever folks,
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Speaker 1: if you've ever used hammers and carpentry or something like that,
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Speaker 1: you know you have to have one hand holding the
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Speaker 1: nail or a hair comb if you want to do
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Speaker 1: a smart trick, right, and then you got the other
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Speaker 1: your thumb if you're not careful, right, right. So think
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Speaker 1: of each member of the team as one of the hands. Right,
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Speaker 1: John Henry is the hand, but the hammer, the shaker
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Speaker 1: is the hand kind of holding the nail for our purposes. Uh,
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Speaker 1: it's it's huge work. The railroad that you mentioned there,
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Speaker 1: the cno is moving a log chew chewing along, but
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Speaker 1: they have a big problem ahead. According to the legend,
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Speaker 1: they have a mountain in West Virginia called the Big
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Speaker 1: Bend Mountain, and it's too large for them to go around,
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Speaker 1: so the only way out is through. They have to
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Speaker 1: blast blast the tunnel into something like one in a
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Speaker 1: fourth miles of solid rock one.
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Speaker 2: As you can imagine, this was dangerous work. This one
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Speaker 2: in particular, led it to a significant number of fatalities.
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Speaker 2: Nearly a thousand men died over the three years it
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Speaker 2: took to complete the project. John Henry, however, was resilient
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Speaker 2: af and survived all the while swinging a fourteen pound hammer.
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Speaker 2: He apparently could accomplish around ten to twelve feet of
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Speaker 2: pounding each day on his own. And and Ben I
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Speaker 2: was something was kind of ringing a bell, and I
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Speaker 2: was like, why am I thinking of Shaquille O'Neal uh here?
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Speaker 3: And it is because he played the character Steele in.
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Speaker 2: The movie version of the Marvel character Steele, whose name
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Speaker 2: as a civilian was John Henry. Steele not meant to
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Speaker 2: be John Henry himself, but inspired by I mean, he
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Speaker 2: was meant to be, like I believe, like a really
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Speaker 2: talented weapons smith and designer.
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Speaker 1: Oh that's crazy. I always thought that man. I always
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Speaker 1: thought Steele was a reference to d C comics.
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Speaker 3: It is DC. Okay, yeah, same character, but yeah, DC.
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Speaker 1: And And it's clearly like that's a great point because
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Speaker 1: it shows us how how brasilient this myth is even
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Speaker 1: in the modern day. So, according to the legend, on
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Speaker 1: to stage, as they're hammering through this fountain, strolls an
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Speaker 1: unidentified salesman and he's just like the guy I selling
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Speaker 1: monoails to Springfield from that legendary Simpsons episode. He's a
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Speaker 1: slick cat, his hair's pushed back, and he says, I've
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Speaker 1: got a solution. I've got an automated steam powered drill
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Speaker 1: that can outperform any living man.
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Speaker 3: Yikes.
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Speaker 2: Not good news for the steel driving men of the world.
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Speaker 2: This is quite controversial. So there is a.
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Speaker 3: Contest of sorts is organized.
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Speaker 2: John Henry being the top steel driver in the human race,
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Speaker 2: it would seem, at least in the region, was to
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Speaker 2: be pitted against this device. This this drill man versus machine.
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Speaker 2: The foreman would run the drill and John Henry, dual
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Speaker 2: wielding two twenty pound hammers, would try to compete with
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Speaker 2: it on his own and seeing who would come out
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Speaker 2: on top.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he tried to solo it, just like at a
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Speaker 1: video game.
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Speaker 3: Solo.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you'll see that. His second, the Shaker, gets
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Speaker 1: increasingly ignored. In the legend, after thirty five minutes of
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Speaker 1: hand to steam drill competition, John Henry is victorious. He
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Speaker 1: has drilled two seven foot holes for a total of
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Speaker 1: fourteen feet. This new fangle drilled by contrast, only makes
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Speaker 1: one nine foot hole. And you know, like the subreddit,
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Speaker 1: everybody clapped, everybody cheers, they say, oh, John, you're the best.
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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, oh khalu kalay, joyous day. And then
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Speaker 1: they realize that John himself has fallen down a blood
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Speaker 1: vessel burst in his brain. The hero of the rail
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Speaker 1: company has beaten the machine, but lost his life in
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Speaker 1: doing so well.
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Speaker 2: And it's, you know, it's it's a teachable moment on
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Speaker 2: both sides because on the one hand, yeah, did he
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Speaker 2: do a better job, Yes, but could he do it
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Speaker 2: that way forever like the machine?
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Speaker 1: No? Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, that's our parable And that's
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Speaker 1: just one version of the story. Obviously, depending on where
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Speaker 1: you hear it. Sometimes the hammers have a different weight.
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Speaker 1: I think in the ballad he is attributed a nine
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Speaker 1: pound hammer, but other times it's fourteen, or twelve or
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Speaker 1: even twenty. The issue is that the story changes over time.
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Speaker 1: Other iterations come later, and they will claim John Henry
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Speaker 1: is not helping blow up these tunnels. Instead, he's one
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Speaker 1: of the guys who goes it, goes along the railway
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Speaker 1: lines and drives spikes.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: That's why I'm a little confused.
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Speaker 2: I think that's sort of the version of the story
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Speaker 2: that I always heard, and I'm picturing John Henry, you know,
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Speaker 2: and driving those spikes along the railroad.
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Speaker 3: But there are multiple versions.
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Speaker 2: In this particular version, his mechanical opponent is an automated
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Speaker 2: rail fastening machine. But at the end of the day,
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Speaker 2: the results and the you know, moral of the story,
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Speaker 2: I guess is the same. So whatever you want to
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Speaker 2: call it a legend, a myth, a bit of folklore,
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Speaker 2: it's it's persevered and continued to take on new meaning
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Speaker 2: in the face of you know, further automation, like picture,
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Speaker 2: you know, the story of the Luddites, you know, throwing
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Speaker 2: printing presses off of cliffs and things like that. I mean,
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Speaker 2: we do have historical examples of human beings fighting back
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Speaker 2: against their mechanized replacements.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the thing. Humanity, as you're saying, has
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Speaker 1: always had a very complicated relationship with innovation, technology, automation,
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Speaker 1: and John Henry speaks to that or the story at least.
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Speaker 1: He's been the subject of novels. The United States Postal
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Speaker 1: Service put out a postage stamp in his order. He's
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Speaker 1: been in animated films like the Disney Wolde you mentioned
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Speaker 1: at the top, and some of the uh, some the
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Speaker 1: adaptations of the ballad we played to start this episode.
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Speaker 1: Above all, we have to remember that John Henry Has
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Speaker 1: a Song is the single most well known and most
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Speaker 1: often recorded folk song of all of Americana. And that nuts.
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Speaker 2: And it makes sense because it does kind of have
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Speaker 2: this dual meaning and that it, you know, tells the
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Speaker 2: tale of American perseverance and building the railroads and all
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Speaker 2: of that, But then it also tells the tale of
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Speaker 2: the cruelty of capitalism, you know, the kinds of things
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Speaker 2: American folk singer Woody Guthrie, whose guitar famously bore the
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Speaker 2: words this machine kills fascists. Yeah, I would have sung,
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Speaker 2: So it really does. It has that nostalgia quality, but
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Speaker 2: it also has that painful twist of, you know, the
14:50
Speaker 2: lie of the American dream in many ways, or at
14:53
Speaker 2: least the stilted truth of it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it always reminds me of a later band
15:00
Speaker 1: rage against the machine, which encapsulates a lot of a
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Speaker 1: lot of the same lessons, the morals, the parables. So
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Speaker 1: we can all easily understand, especially in these troubled times,
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Speaker 1: why so many people identify with the heroic character of
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Speaker 1: John Henry here. But today's question is how much of
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Speaker 1: that story is true? And Noel max fell ridiculous historians,
15:27
Speaker 1: as we found, when you search for the truth about
15:30
Speaker 1: John Henry, things can quickly go off the rails.
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Speaker 2: Not apologizing they sure can, obviously, the stuff of folklore
15:49
Speaker 2: typically evolves from a kernel of truth, from a real person,
15:53
Speaker 2: from a real event, but then has a way of
15:55
Speaker 2: kind of through that historical game of telephone, taking on
15:59
Speaker 2: a life of itself, and as you said, Ben, even
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Speaker 2: creating multiple versions depending on the teller and the circumstances,
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Speaker 2: and can also evolve kind of with the times.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely well said, we know it is true. We know
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Speaker 1: several things are true. It is true that railroad companies exist,
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Speaker 1: so you know, it was a railroad company that existed
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Speaker 1: at the time. It is true that they hired thousands
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Speaker 1: of dudes to smooth out the trade and to cut
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Speaker 1: through obstacles, including mountains and other protuberances that stood in
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Speaker 1: the way of their railroad tracks. It's also true that
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Speaker 1: steel drivers were a real thing and they did work
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Speaker 1: the way described in the legend. But when we get
16:43
Speaker 1: to like to your point, Noel, when we get to
16:45
Speaker 1: the actual John Henry, there's so much debate still in
16:49
Speaker 1: the modern day. And it's crazy because we always mentioned
16:54
Speaker 1: the game of telephone, right, The sheer popularity of this
16:58
Speaker 1: folk tale makes the research difficult. And I got to
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Speaker 1: tell you guys, also, the fact that his name is
17:05
Speaker 1: like John Henry instead of John wickenstatt Borough or something
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Speaker 1: makes it tougher because there are a lot of people
17:13
Speaker 1: named John Henry or yeah, exactly right. So even if
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Speaker 1: he was a real single entity, even if we accept
17:23
Speaker 1: that for the sake of conversation, folks still don't agree
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Speaker 1: on where or how everything went down. And this this
17:33
Speaker 1: historical investigation dates way back, like in the nineteen twenties.
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Speaker 1: You can find people investigating this so.
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Speaker 2: Back in the nineteen twenties, a guy by the name
17:44
Speaker 2: of Guy Benton Johnson, a sociologist. He did some digging
17:50
Speaker 2: into the provenance of the John Henry myth legend folklore
17:55
Speaker 2: and concluded that there was a John Henry that might
17:59
Speaker 2: have worked for the railroads, specifically for the Chesapeake and
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Speaker 2: Ohio Railroad Company during that massive Big Bend Tunnel construction project.
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Speaker 2: The way he puts it is, one can make out
18:13
Speaker 2: a case either four or against it.
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Speaker 3: Okay, okay, let's do the case four. Perhaps start yeah.
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Speaker 1: But also he's kind of shrugging, right, he said, you
18:26
Speaker 1: can say whatever you want. You could say John Henry
18:29
Speaker 1: is definitely real, or you can say John Henry definitely
18:33
Speaker 1: didn't do this. It's weird do He does do a
18:38
Speaker 1: lot of like boots on the ground looking at this.
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Speaker 1: He says, all right, we know the tunnel really was built,
18:46
Speaker 1: and it took from eighteen seventy to eighteen seventy two
18:49
Speaker 1: to make it. And he says, I'm going to go
18:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to interview people in the area and see
18:55
Speaker 1: if anybody has a first hand recollection or written proof
19:01
Speaker 1: of what happens. And he finds a guy who swears
19:05
Speaker 1: up and down that he knew the John Henry personal
19:10
Speaker 1: or you could say another guy, another guy named John Henry.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
19:15
Speaker 2: And you know, to your point, Ben, it being something
19:17
Speaker 2: of a common name, especially for the times, is it
19:21
Speaker 2: does become harder and harder to you know, run down
19:24
Speaker 2: the reality of the situation.
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Speaker 3: And here's how Johnson puts it.
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Speaker 2: So, this man known as Neil Miller told me in
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Speaker 2: plain words, how he had come to the tunnel with
19:33
Speaker 2: his father at seventeen, how he carried water and drills
19:37
Speaker 2: for the steel drivers. He was sort of a steel
19:38
Speaker 2: drive and caddy of sorts. That's me, not Johnson. How
19:42
Speaker 2: he saw John Henry every single day, and finally, all
19:44
Speaker 2: about the contest between John Henry and the stem drill.
19:47
Speaker 3: This seems promising, Ben.
19:49
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it seems it has specificity, right, and it
19:53
Speaker 1: seems like the guy is sharing genuine memories. We know
19:59
Speaker 1: our buddy. Neil Miller continues, and when he is talking
20:03
Speaker 1: to this sociologist Johnson, he describes the legend of John
20:07
Speaker 1: Henry pretty much beat for beat, and the only big
20:11
Speaker 1: difference is that he says John Henry doesn't die immediately.
20:16
Speaker 1: He carries on a little bit after the fact, and
20:20
Speaker 1: then Miller also says, yeah, there was definitely a steam drill.
20:24
Speaker 1: Let me describe what the steam drill looked like. So
20:27
Speaker 1: he's talking to the sociologist who was essentially a folklorist
20:31
Speaker 1: at this point, and our buddy Johnson is listening to him,
20:35
Speaker 1: and he's writing down notes and dimensions, and so from
20:38
Speaker 1: these he makes a sketch of what that steam drill
20:42
Speaker 1: would have looked like. And he goes back and he
20:45
Speaker 1: looks at photos of early steam drills that would have
20:49
Speaker 1: been around at the time, and he says, Okay, this
20:52
Speaker 1: looks legit. So as you said, Noel, it's promising until
20:56
Speaker 1: there's another turn.
20:58
Speaker 2: A bit of a twist not in the favor of
21:00
Speaker 2: this tale. Sadly, Johnson contacted Sino Railroads themselves themselves, and
21:06
Speaker 2: their chief engineer C. W. Johns stated with zero uncertainty
21:12
Speaker 2: that no steam drills were used in the construction of
21:16
Speaker 2: Big Bend. Unfortunately, John's wasn't able to provide a whole
21:21
Speaker 2: lot more information. All the records from that period, he said,
21:25
Speaker 2: burned up in a fire.
21:27
Speaker 1: Convenient.
21:28
Speaker 3: I was about to.
21:28
Speaker 2: Say, but I would think that technology wise, if you
21:32
Speaker 2: were like the historian for a company like that, you'd
21:35
Speaker 2: probably have a decent sense of the kind of equipment
21:37
Speaker 2: that was in play.
21:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point there, Noel, We know
21:42
Speaker 1: that from Johnson's research in the late nineteen twenties. In
21:47
Speaker 1: his estimation, we do have a John Henry, and this
21:52
Speaker 1: John Henry is in West Virginia. But there are clearly
21:55
Speaker 1: contradicting accounts of what went down, whether a steam drill
21:59
Speaker 1: was in the middle, and there is no documentation to
22:02
Speaker 1: prove it either way. They're just oral recollections. But there
22:06
Speaker 1: are other opinions. We got a fast forward to two
22:10
Speaker 1: thousand and six. This is some banger research by an
22:13
Speaker 1: astorian named Scott Reynolds Nelson.
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Speaker 2: In his book Steel Driving Man John Henry, The Untold
22:19
Speaker 2: Story of an American Legend, Reynolds Nelson argues that Henry
22:24
Speaker 2: was in fact a real guy born in New Jersey
22:26
Speaker 2: in eighteen forty eight. He found this information using a
22:32
Speaker 2: different source than had previously been tapped, unanalyzed prison records
22:38
Speaker 2: from the Virginia Penitentiary, and in that he found a
22:42
Speaker 2: nineteen year old African American man with three different names
22:46
Speaker 2: on paper, John Henry, John W. Henry, and John William Henry.
22:51
Speaker 1: Now are these all the same guy or these three
22:54
Speaker 1: different jobs? You know what I mean? This is a pickle.
22:59
Speaker 1: At the time, we know that penitentiary inmates were often
23:04
Speaker 1: hired out as laborers to various private companies. John Henry is,
23:10
Speaker 1: according to Nelson's research, noted as having been part of
23:15
Speaker 1: the first group of prisoners assigned railroad tunnel work. And
23:20
Speaker 1: Nelson also looked at CNO's tunneling records, which is surprising
23:25
Speaker 1: because he found stuff that apparently hadn't burned up in
23:29
Speaker 1: a fire.
23:30
Speaker 3: Ah okay, curious, sir, exactly. Ben.
23:35
Speaker 2: So, with all of this newfound information, Nelson speculated that
23:39
Speaker 2: his John Henry might well have come to Virginia in
23:42
Speaker 2: order to help clean up battlefields after the Civil War,
23:46
Speaker 2: then been arrested for burglary. And we should talk a
23:50
Speaker 2: little bit about the black Codes. That could be an
23:52
Speaker 2: episode unto itself in the brutally hypocritical way that these
23:57
Speaker 2: freedmen were treated after already having gone through such horrific circumstances.
24:03
Speaker 3: That's a maybe a conversation for another day.
24:04
Speaker 1: Ben.
24:05
Speaker 2: Then at that point he became potentially one of the
24:08
Speaker 2: many convicts that were pushed into least labor for the
24:12
Speaker 2: C and Oil Company, which I would argue, Ben, and
24:14
Speaker 2: I think this is where you're heading as well.
24:16
Speaker 3: Is so sort of almost a form of like indentured servitude, right.
24:19
Speaker 1: One hundred percent, Yeah, this is definitely I agree. We've
24:24
Speaker 1: got to make an episode about the Black Codes in
24:27
Speaker 1: the future. Their primary aim was to put as many
24:34
Speaker 1: newly freed African American people into the prison system as possible,
24:40
Speaker 1: so all of the stuff you could be convicted of
24:44
Speaker 1: carried cartoonishly overbearing fines and a lot of jail time.
24:51
Speaker 1: And one of the silliest, most evil things about the
24:55
Speaker 1: Black Codes were that in this area, at this time,
25:00
Speaker 1: they've made it a crime for black people to seem
25:04
Speaker 1: too cheerful about the end of slavery right now.
25:08
Speaker 2: It's just absurd and not to mention I think, which
25:11
Speaker 2: is appropriate in this conversation or relevant, they created these
25:16
Speaker 2: forced year long labor contracts, and getting out of them,
25:20
Speaker 2: or trying to get out of them earlier, meant that
25:22
Speaker 2: you could not only have your wages garnished, but you
25:25
Speaker 2: could potentially face arrest as well. Aggressively heavy handed implementation
25:32
Speaker 2: of vagrancy laws like and then this is inherently racist
25:35
Speaker 2: in and of itself, the idea of the idle black man
25:39
Speaker 2: finding them for you know, being quote unquote shiftless and
25:44
Speaker 2: layabouts whatever, right.
25:46
Speaker 1: Illegal, not to have an employer, illegal to be happy,
25:49
Speaker 1: all kinds of And.
25:50
Speaker 3: This wasn't the same as Jim Crow.
25:51
Speaker 2: But hand in hands, right, these things operated in concert.
25:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yes, you nailed it right, Like a duck
25:59
Speaker 1: verse is a goose. We're still talking birds.
26:02
Speaker 2: So you actually, isn't it true that this is what
26:05
Speaker 2: kind of more evolved into Jim Crow. I mean, they
26:07
Speaker 2: are kind of part of the same thinking.
26:10
Speaker 1: Yes, very much so, very much so the shadow of racism.
26:14
Speaker 1: And according to Nelson, there is a a kind of
26:20
Speaker 1: off to the side hero, or at least a well
26:24
Speaker 1: intentioned person in this story. It's weirdly enough, the warden
26:28
Speaker 1: of the prison in Virginia. This warden had been in
26:39
Speaker 1: prison during the Civil War. He was a former ice salesman.
26:44
Speaker 1: He just sold frozen water and he got in trouble
26:47
Speaker 1: with Confederate forces for supporting the Union. And when he
26:52
Speaker 1: became a warden, he looked around at the just horrific
26:55
Speaker 1: conditions of this Virginia penitentiary. And he said, look, a
27:00
Speaker 1: lot of these guys have been jammed up on very
27:04
Speaker 1: small time charges, like you said, being happy loitery, right,
27:08
Speaker 1: maybe taking a little bit of money. He says, if
27:12
Speaker 1: we make them laborers for private contractors, maybe they will
27:17
Speaker 1: have better living conditions, Maybe they will have better clothing,
27:20
Speaker 1: maybe they will be fed on a more regular, more
27:23
Speaker 1: healthy basis. GEK. Yeah, that part is largely lost to
27:28
Speaker 1: history outside of Nelson's research. But like that nineteen twenties
27:33
Speaker 1: sociologist before him, Nelson looked and looked and looked and
27:37
Speaker 1: could find no hard evidence of a steam drill actually
27:41
Speaker 1: being used in Big Bend. That takes him to another tunnel.
27:47
Speaker 3: Aha, another tunnel.
27:49
Speaker 2: He did find evidence that such a contest took place
27:51
Speaker 2: forty miles away at the Lewis Tunnel between Talcott and
27:55
Speaker 2: Millburg in Virginia. So we do know that there were
27:59
Speaker 2: steam drills that were implemented in that project, and we
28:03
Speaker 2: also know that there were prisoners who worked alongside them.
28:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we got to bust a little bit of
28:10
Speaker 1: a myth about the steam drill from the John Henry story.
28:15
Speaker 1: The steam drill in folklore is advertised as this unstoppable
28:21
Speaker 1: amazing kind of evil, unrelenting thing. But the steam drills
28:26
Speaker 1: that were in practice here, they were not perfect. They
28:30
Speaker 1: threw up all kinds of dust, and they threw up
28:34
Speaker 1: all kinds of particulates that would not just endanger the
28:38
Speaker 1: people in the area, there were also the kind of
28:43
Speaker 1: things that were small enough to screw up the machine itself.
28:47
Speaker 1: So we keep running, and the more it ran, the
28:50
Speaker 1: more likely it would be to get jammed up, and
28:53
Speaker 1: so you'd have to have a team of humans to
28:55
Speaker 1: come in either to fix it to clean it.
28:58
Speaker 2: Right then, I think in somewhere here in terms of
29:01
Speaker 2: the modern equivalent, you know this this willy nilly deployment
29:05
Speaker 2: of machine learning, large language models to the point where
29:09
Speaker 2: they're trying to use it to replace certain jobs.
29:11
Speaker 3: But then they still require people.
29:13
Speaker 2: To kind of check behind them and make sure they
29:14
Speaker 2: don't blow up the world, you know, or hallucinate facts
29:19
Speaker 2: when used for you know, writing articles and things like that, right, right, exactly,
29:24
Speaker 2: almost more trouble than it's worth, because it's just it
29:27
Speaker 2: isn't ready, right, It's not there yet.
29:29
Speaker 1: Yes, sir our. Historian Nelson also says the verses of
29:34
Speaker 1: the ballot about John Henry include him being buried near
29:38
Speaker 1: quote the White House in the sand somewhere the locomotives roar.
29:44
Speaker 1: That means that Henry's body, to Nelson's research, was buried
29:47
Speaker 1: in a ditch, not behind Pennsylvania Avenue right, not behind
29:52
Speaker 1: the Potus White House, but behind a part of the
29:58
Speaker 1: Virginia State Penitentiary he called the White House. At the
30:02
Speaker 1: time this was painted white, and later research we don't
30:07
Speaker 1: want to get too dark here, found that there were
30:09
Speaker 1: numerous on marched graves behind that area.
30:13
Speaker 2: Which makes sense considering the dangerous conditions of this kind
30:16
Speaker 2: of work and the low value of human labor that
30:20
Speaker 2: was assigned by these railroad overlords. And Ben, I mean,
30:25
Speaker 2: I think we've both been thinking this along the way,
30:27
Speaker 2: and you probably have two ridiculous stories. Is that this,
30:30
Speaker 2: like a lot of folkloric figures, seems like John Henry was.
30:34
Speaker 3: He was a symbol.
30:35
Speaker 2: We represented a lot of these these things that we're
30:38
Speaker 2: talking about, the evils of the corruption and evils of
30:41
Speaker 2: you know, unchecked industrialization. But he was less likely a
30:47
Speaker 2: single person than he was like, you know, an amalgamation
30:52
Speaker 2: of different people and kind of meant to be almost
30:54
Speaker 2: like a symbol rather than a historical figure.
30:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's the idea. I think we're all
31:01
Speaker 1: we're all picking up here, especially because Nilson's research, which
31:05
Speaker 1: we cannot praise enough, finds that the trail goes cold
31:10
Speaker 1: for this alternately named John something Williams. The prison records
31:15
Speaker 1: for John William Henry, they stop full stop in eighteen
31:20
Speaker 1: seventy three. There's nothing saying he was released for time served.
31:25
Speaker 1: There's nothing saying he died, but the fact that they
31:29
Speaker 1: just stopped writing about him at that time. Given the
31:33
Speaker 1: way of the US Tree of Black People, it probably
31:36
Speaker 1: means he.
31:36
Speaker 2: Died not necessarily from a brain aneurysm due to too
31:41
Speaker 2: much pounding.
31:42
Speaker 1: You're right, right, a braid agorism, due to too much bounding.
31:48
Speaker 1: We're a family show, what a way to go? But
31:50
Speaker 1: ul a way? You know. Yeah.
31:52
Speaker 3: In the naughtier version of that scenario.
31:55
Speaker 1: Yes, scenario yeah, Nelson instead believes that is Henry, the
32:02
Speaker 1: one he has found, actually died of a terrible respiratory
32:07
Speaker 1: condition called silicosis.
32:09
Speaker 3: Oh oh boy.
32:11
Speaker 2: Now this is relevant because we're talking about the kind
32:13
Speaker 2: of thing that is caused by inhalation of gnarly materials
32:19
Speaker 2: like rock dust and.
32:20
Speaker 1: Debris one hundred percent, dude. Yeah, brought on by drills,
32:24
Speaker 1: brought on by blasting, regardless of the of the tunnel
32:29
Speaker 1: in which you're.
32:29
Speaker 2: Work And I do have to take this as an
32:31
Speaker 2: opportunity to say a thing that will always live with
32:34
Speaker 2: me is the longest word I know. And I believe
32:37
Speaker 2: this has also been referenced to the Futurama or the
32:40
Speaker 2: Simpsons at the very least. Numono ultra microscopic silicon volcanic coniosis,
32:45
Speaker 2: which is not what we're describing here, but it is
32:47
Speaker 2: the version of it that you would get from working in.
32:49
Speaker 3: A coal mine.
32:50
Speaker 1: Nice? Is that a real word?
32:51
Speaker 3: Sure?
32:51
Speaker 2: Is mnumona ultra microscopic silica bocanoniosis?
32:55
Speaker 1: Thank you. It reminds me of a Mary Poppins song.
33:01
Speaker 1: It's got that cadence to it. That's beautiful. So now, folks,
33:06
Speaker 1: as we're wrapping up, we have to realize.
33:09
Speaker 3: It is the same thing.
33:10
Speaker 2: It's it's inhalation of very fine silica or quartz dust.
33:14
Speaker 2: So I guess, uh, the what was it silicosis? It's
33:18
Speaker 2: just maybe a shorthand for something very similar, but that
33:20
Speaker 2: that is the word.
33:22
Speaker 1: Or that's a specific type perhaps, And at this point,
33:26
Speaker 1: as we're wrapping up here, folks. Our question naturally moves
33:30
Speaker 1: from who was the real John Henry?
33:32
Speaker 3: Too?
33:33
Speaker 1: Was there a real John Henry? A definitive answer maybe
33:38
Speaker 1: lost the time because not all the historians agree. But
33:41
Speaker 1: Nelson's work is awesome. Do check out his book, and
33:45
Speaker 1: we know most importantly, the legend isn't going away anytime soon.
33:50
Speaker 1: The story of John Henry has been with our nation
33:53
Speaker 1: through countless labor movements, power to the people, through the
33:57
Speaker 1: struggle for civil rights, and now of course returns anew
34:01
Speaker 1: revivified and the great debate about AI and automation.
34:07
Speaker 3: Really really great work on this brief as well. Ben.
34:09
Speaker 3: We're gonna come back soon with another.
34:12
Speaker 2: Food history story about soft served ice cream for the summer.
34:17
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, huge thanks to you again, Ben
34:20
Speaker 2: for the research on this one. Huge thanks to Jonathan's
34:23
Speaker 2: strickland Is the Quister and A. Jbahamas Jacobs the Pustler.
34:28
Speaker 1: Yes, big, big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance,
34:32
Speaker 1: as well as the Rude Dude's a ridiculous crime. If
34:34
Speaker 1: you love us, you will dig them, hopefully not like
34:38
Speaker 1: a railway tunnel. We also have to say big, big
34:42
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer Max, the Free Trade, Williams,
34:46
Speaker 1: and Noel this is this is a fun one man.
34:49
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying our time together exploring larger than life
34:53
Speaker 1: figures of American folklore.
34:55
Speaker 3: So thank you, ah man, You're welcome, and thanks to you.
34:58
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
35:07
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
35:11
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.