Summary Of Out Of This Furnace

Out of this Furnace was written by Thomas Bell in 1941 and follows the Kracha family across 3 generations. The story begins with the first generation of the Kracha family being explored. The main narrative of the first third of the book follows George Kracha as he begins his journey from Hungary to America to chase the American dream and escape the regime of Franz Josef. He makes his way to New York but when he arrives he only has fifty cents to his name due to him spending all of his money on a married women during his voyage to America. This resulted in him having to walk all the way to White Haven, Pennsylvania to be with his family that have already moved to America. Once in White Haven George begins working first for the railroads which makes him and his wife move around. Until he is brought on at the steel mill where many of his family and friends work. The Kracha family tries multiple avenues to bring in more income with supporting boarders and starting their own butchery business although starting their own business did not work out for them in the end and they ended up up loosing most everything they had. The second part of the book focuses on
The characters in this book are representations of his family and they things they went through to be where they were that day. I think he wanted to help with the changes that were happening in the country with labor laws and show how bad things had been and to help drive things into a more positive direction. Using personal stories to drive the narrative allows the audience to sympathize with the characters and really feel how hard it was for them and allow you to gain a better understanding of what it was like to be a fresh immigrant in America and work for nothing to try and achieve a little piece of the American