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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
My Slovak relatives recommended this book because they thought it did an excellent job of capturing the Slovak experience in America (and, more specifically, in Pittsburgh). Even my dad and his cousins could relate to it--their fathers still worked in the mills in the 1950s and sixties (and in some cases, if they lived that long, in the seventies), everyone was in the union, grandparents and unmarried uncles and boarders filled the spare rooms in their homes, etc. It's not the most elegantly written book, but the story's certainly interesting, and it made me appreciate how rapidly things change, even in just a generation or two.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was assigned to me in college for a "Labor in the U.S." class taught by Dana Frank. I forget what the exact title of the class was, but it was under American Studies. I didn't appreciate the writing or the depth of this book back then in my early 20s. But reading it again now in order to give it its due before donating it, I see the beauty and generous storytelling by the author. I'm pretty sure this book is out of print by now (probably) and so I think I'll keep it instead of donate it. I appreciate the author's characters, which, after reading the Epilogue, are based on some of his family members.
This is one of those instances where when I finish something, I want to find out more about these people - like finishing a streaming series and then wanting to watch interviews, behind the scenes, and bloopers just to get more out of it even though it's over. I felt so invested in the characters and the tragedies that befell some of them. I just really wanted things to work out for once. And in the end, things worked out better for Dobie than his predecessors. But isn't that usually the case for immigrants to America?
“He stared at her and hated her, less for what she was than because desire drove him to her and she, unbeautiful, unresponsive, whining, made it a bitter taste in his mouth.” pg. 23 [Kracha with Elena]
“‘There’s the kind of husband I should have,’ Dorta said, looking at Dubik accusingly.
He spread his hands. ‘I give her my whole pay, I drink only on paydays, I beat her no oftener than twice a week and still she complains.’
There was, Kracha admitted, no satisfying some women.” pg. 33 [patriarchal and misogynistic views from the late 1880s Slovak immigrants to Pennsylvania]
“In Homestead Kracha had helped produce steel plates from red-hot slabs; in Braddock he helped produce the metal from the raw ore. He was a very minor factor in the extensive, highly involved process of supplying a nation with steel, though it cannot be said that he ever thought of himself in just that way. Mills existed to provide men with jobs and men worked in mills because they had to work somewhere. Kracha did what he was told and was paid for it every two weeks; his interest ended there. There was little about his work to make him feel it was important or necessary; on the contrary, the company lost no opportunity to impress upon him that his services could be dispensed with at any time, that it was really doing him an enormous favor by letting him work at all.” pg. 44
“Kracha relit his stogie; he seldom smoked a pipe nowadays. ‘You listen to me,’ he said. ‘There are men in that mill who were born here, whose fathers and grandfathers were born here. They know more English than you’ll ever learn. And what good is their vote doing them? They have to work in the mill and eat dirt like any greenhorn. Let me tell you, I’ve been in America long enough to learn that it’s run just like any other country. In Europe your emperors and grand dukes own everything and over here it’s your millionaires and your trusts. They run the country to suit themselves, and don’t think they’re going to let you interfere every few years with your miserable vote. Get that into your head. Your vote means nothing. The company man [referring to a candidate running for President] always wins. If he isn’t a company man to start with he becomes one afterward; the millionaires see to that.’” pg. 66-67
“The implied denial of social and racial equality seldom troubled them; as Kracha once said, he had come to America to find work and save money, not to make friends with the Irish.” pg. 124
“He lifted his head. ‘I don’t mind work. I’ve never been afraid of work. But what have I to show for all my years of work? There’s so much that is beautiful and pleasant in the world; why must only poverty and meanness be our portion?’” pg. 195 [Mike Dobrejcak to Bodnar]
“Mike huddled on the doorstep with his face buried in his arms like a man overcome by despair.
‘All a man can be sure of is what he gets here on earth. He gets it here or he never gets it at all. Don’t comfort yourself that what you have to bear with in life will be made up by felicity in heaven, or that the enemy who harms you will be fittingly punished in hell, for what you get here on earth, whether it’s riches or poverty, happiness or sorrow, is all you ever get, and what you want or have merited has nothing to do with it. The pleasant days, the quiet places; the money jingling in the pocket, the cities and countries you would like to see, the things you would like to do—all this you enjoy here on earth or forever go without. There’s no making up what you missed, no going back; no triumphs for the long-suffering, no fiery torments for the evildoers. Nobody keeps accounts, and once the worms have finished with them the murderer rests as peacefully as his victim. For there is no God and it doesn’t matter how we live or when we die. Our work and our dreams, the good we did, the evil we suffered, the hope we kept alive in our hearts—none of it matters, and our laughter and tears and prayers alike come to no more than the howl of a dog in the night, heard for a moment and then heard no more.’” pg. 197-198 [effing poetic!]
“Her legs, brown from Sundays beside the Kennywood pool, were bare, and her dress was blue scattered with small white flowers. She wasn’t wearing much under it; her hipbones were prominent and her breasts shook gently when she moved, The sense of intimacy produced by her casual apparel was strong, making him realize all over again that she was here to stay, that she was his.” pg. 301 [I love the details here and the love story between them, that Dobie creates with his thoughts about Julie and their life together.]
“It was not as exciting as Dobie had thought it would be. The law in action appeared to be largely a dull, plodding business of questions and answers, objections, conferences, recesses. Watching and listening he realized why the Board’s investigators had gone to so much trouble to buttress the obvious. The company’s lawyers were politely incredulous of everything and surprised or shocked at nothing. After a while it seemed almost like a game in which what was said was less important than how it was said. A sentence would be carefully set up, everyone stepped back to a safe distance, and the opposing lawyers then attempted to shoot holes through it while both sides watched with a sort of detached, professional interest. . . .
Familiar names, Braddock, Duquesne, the names of people, the names of jobs and things in the mill, took on an odd sound. The place and the listeners made them hardly more than words, stripped them of most of their meaning. Sometimes he felt heartsick and discouraged because so little of what should have been communicated was coming through. What could all this talk of company unions and intimidation mean to people who had never worked in a mill or lived in a steel town? The company’s lawyers knew what they were defending but how could anyone here understand what the witnesses were fighting for? It wasn’t a game to them. They were awkward, their clothes didn’t fit, they perspired and used bad grammar; but sit one of those beautiful lawyers on a casting in the mill yard and surround him with steelworkers and how long would his starched linen stay unwilted? That was where a hearing of this kind should have been held, in the mill yard or in one of the First Ward’s noisome alleys, where words and names were actual things and living people, beyond any lawyer’s dismissal—smoke and machinery and blast furnaces, crumbling hovels and underfed children, and lives without beauty or peace. And not this or some other Government board, but a jury should have sat in judgment here, a jury of ghosts: Mike Dobrejcak and Mary and Pauline, Joe Dubik and Kracha—the maimed and the destroyed, the sickly who died young, the women worn out before their time with work and child-bearing, all the thousands of lives the mills had consumed as surely as they had consumed their tons of coke and ore. They would have known what the words meant. They would have known what was being fought for here.” pg. 393-394 [So passionate and beautifully worded]
“To the day of his death, no doubt, some nerve would twitch, some uncontrollable muscle flinch, at the word ‘Hunky’ used as an epithet; to the day of his death certain graces, certain niceties of taste and manner and speech would stay unknown to him or become him awkwardly, like borrowed garments. And by so much, in his own eyes at least, he would always be a poorer human being than he might have been.” pg. 409 [Dobie’s thoughts; beautiful in their tragedy of poverty and knowing that there is more out there that seems unobtainable/impossible.]
This is one of those instances where when I finish something, I want to find out more about these people - like finishing a streaming series and then wanting to watch interviews, behind the scenes, and bloopers just to get more out of it even though it's over. I felt so invested in the characters and the tragedies that befell some of them. I just really wanted things to work out for once. And in the end, things worked out better for Dobie than his predecessors. But isn't that usually the case for immigrants to America?
“He stared at her and hated her, less for what she was than because desire drove him to her and she, unbeautiful, unresponsive, whining, made it a bitter taste in his mouth.” pg. 23 [Kracha with Elena]
“‘There’s the kind of husband I should have,’ Dorta said, looking at Dubik accusingly.
He spread his hands. ‘I give her my whole pay, I drink only on paydays, I beat her no oftener than twice a week and still she complains.’
There was, Kracha admitted, no satisfying some women.” pg. 33 [patriarchal and misogynistic views from the late 1880s Slovak immigrants to Pennsylvania]
“In Homestead Kracha had helped produce steel plates from red-hot slabs; in Braddock he helped produce the metal from the raw ore. He was a very minor factor in the extensive, highly involved process of supplying a nation with steel, though it cannot be said that he ever thought of himself in just that way. Mills existed to provide men with jobs and men worked in mills because they had to work somewhere. Kracha did what he was told and was paid for it every two weeks; his interest ended there. There was little about his work to make him feel it was important or necessary; on the contrary, the company lost no opportunity to impress upon him that his services could be dispensed with at any time, that it was really doing him an enormous favor by letting him work at all.” pg. 44
“Kracha relit his stogie; he seldom smoked a pipe nowadays. ‘You listen to me,’ he said. ‘There are men in that mill who were born here, whose fathers and grandfathers were born here. They know more English than you’ll ever learn. And what good is their vote doing them? They have to work in the mill and eat dirt like any greenhorn. Let me tell you, I’ve been in America long enough to learn that it’s run just like any other country. In Europe your emperors and grand dukes own everything and over here it’s your millionaires and your trusts. They run the country to suit themselves, and don’t think they’re going to let you interfere every few years with your miserable vote. Get that into your head. Your vote means nothing. The company man [referring to a candidate running for President] always wins. If he isn’t a company man to start with he becomes one afterward; the millionaires see to that.’” pg. 66-67
“The implied denial of social and racial equality seldom troubled them; as Kracha once said, he had come to America to find work and save money, not to make friends with the Irish.” pg. 124
“He lifted his head. ‘I don’t mind work. I’ve never been afraid of work. But what have I to show for all my years of work? There’s so much that is beautiful and pleasant in the world; why must only poverty and meanness be our portion?’” pg. 195 [Mike Dobrejcak to Bodnar]
“Mike huddled on the doorstep with his face buried in his arms like a man overcome by despair.
‘All a man can be sure of is what he gets here on earth. He gets it here or he never gets it at all. Don’t comfort yourself that what you have to bear with in life will be made up by felicity in heaven, or that the enemy who harms you will be fittingly punished in hell, for what you get here on earth, whether it’s riches or poverty, happiness or sorrow, is all you ever get, and what you want or have merited has nothing to do with it. The pleasant days, the quiet places; the money jingling in the pocket, the cities and countries you would like to see, the things you would like to do—all this you enjoy here on earth or forever go without. There’s no making up what you missed, no going back; no triumphs for the long-suffering, no fiery torments for the evildoers. Nobody keeps accounts, and once the worms have finished with them the murderer rests as peacefully as his victim. For there is no God and it doesn’t matter how we live or when we die. Our work and our dreams, the good we did, the evil we suffered, the hope we kept alive in our hearts—none of it matters, and our laughter and tears and prayers alike come to no more than the howl of a dog in the night, heard for a moment and then heard no more.’” pg. 197-198 [effing poetic!]
“Her legs, brown from Sundays beside the Kennywood pool, were bare, and her dress was blue scattered with small white flowers. She wasn’t wearing much under it; her hipbones were prominent and her breasts shook gently when she moved, The sense of intimacy produced by her casual apparel was strong, making him realize all over again that she was here to stay, that she was his.” pg. 301 [I love the details here and the love story between them, that Dobie creates with his thoughts about Julie and their life together.]
“It was not as exciting as Dobie had thought it would be. The law in action appeared to be largely a dull, plodding business of questions and answers, objections, conferences, recesses. Watching and listening he realized why the Board’s investigators had gone to so much trouble to buttress the obvious. The company’s lawyers were politely incredulous of everything and surprised or shocked at nothing. After a while it seemed almost like a game in which what was said was less important than how it was said. A sentence would be carefully set up, everyone stepped back to a safe distance, and the opposing lawyers then attempted to shoot holes through it while both sides watched with a sort of detached, professional interest. . . .
Familiar names, Braddock, Duquesne, the names of people, the names of jobs and things in the mill, took on an odd sound. The place and the listeners made them hardly more than words, stripped them of most of their meaning. Sometimes he felt heartsick and discouraged because so little of what should have been communicated was coming through. What could all this talk of company unions and intimidation mean to people who had never worked in a mill or lived in a steel town? The company’s lawyers knew what they were defending but how could anyone here understand what the witnesses were fighting for? It wasn’t a game to them. They were awkward, their clothes didn’t fit, they perspired and used bad grammar; but sit one of those beautiful lawyers on a casting in the mill yard and surround him with steelworkers and how long would his starched linen stay unwilted? That was where a hearing of this kind should have been held, in the mill yard or in one of the First Ward’s noisome alleys, where words and names were actual things and living people, beyond any lawyer’s dismissal—smoke and machinery and blast furnaces, crumbling hovels and underfed children, and lives without beauty or peace. And not this or some other Government board, but a jury should have sat in judgment here, a jury of ghosts: Mike Dobrejcak and Mary and Pauline, Joe Dubik and Kracha—the maimed and the destroyed, the sickly who died young, the women worn out before their time with work and child-bearing, all the thousands of lives the mills had consumed as surely as they had consumed their tons of coke and ore. They would have known what the words meant. They would have known what was being fought for here.” pg. 393-394 [So passionate and beautifully worded]
“To the day of his death, no doubt, some nerve would twitch, some uncontrollable muscle flinch, at the word ‘Hunky’ used as an epithet; to the day of his death certain graces, certain niceties of taste and manner and speech would stay unknown to him or become him awkwardly, like borrowed garments. And by so much, in his own eyes at least, he would always be a poorer human being than he might have been.” pg. 409 [Dobie’s thoughts; beautiful in their tragedy of poverty and knowing that there is more out there that seems unobtainable/impossible.]
This is the story of Slovak immigrants settling in Braddock, PA and working in the Edgar Thomson (and others) steel mill. It covers three generations. My husband was a third-generation ET worker. Knowing a bit about Braddock and the mill intensified the story for me. I could also relate to the Slovak, as my grandparents came from that general area. The doctor in the story had a name similar to my family name.
A wonderful novel that explores the effects of U.S. industrialization on workers, women, and children with accurate portrayals of strikes, unions, and Pinkerton spies. A must-read for anyone interested in immigration, labor history, industrialization, and U.S. history in general.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
A multi-generational saga about the Slovak immigrant community in Pittsburgh and one family’s struggles to make it in America, and to make themselves American.
I enjoyed this old-fashioned historical novel that spans a half a century, but I have to say, part of my enjoyment came from picturing the towns along both sides of the Monongahela River that I once knew. I could also say that that the people at the end of this novel could have been the grandparents of the “Hunkies” I went to high school with in the 1970’s. They were not necessarily fond of bookish Jewish kids like me, but this book helps me understand where their culture came from.
You don’t have to have a Pittsburgh connection to appreciate the author’s sharp eye for character and for social history, though. Recommended.
I enjoyed this old-fashioned historical novel that spans a half a century, but I have to say, part of my enjoyment came from picturing the towns along both sides of the Monongahela River that I once knew. I could also say that that the people at the end of this novel could have been the grandparents of the “Hunkies” I went to high school with in the 1970’s. They were not necessarily fond of bookish Jewish kids like me, but this book helps me understand where their culture came from.
You don’t have to have a Pittsburgh connection to appreciate the author’s sharp eye for character and for social history, though. Recommended.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Pittsburgh. According to the Afterword, the characters and story were based, sometimes loosely, sometimes closely, on the author's relatives and their stories. It was mostly excellent and very entertaining. I understand that part of the local history much better for having read this book. It's also interesting to know what followed, how the unions ultimately changed the steel industry, and how Bell's actual family was not so very attached to place.