Out of This Furnace

Thought immigrants arrived in America seeking a better life and security, they often met with one hardship after another. As the novel explains early on, much of early American industry at the time was made off the blood and sweat of immigrants. In fact, many men lost their lives due to dangerous working conditions. This harsh reality is evidenced in the lives of the Kracha family and their friends. When Mike Dobrejcak is killed in a mill accident, for instance, the family grieves, but life must go on. Mike’s family is rumored to receive money. Moreover, the mill knew that the furnace where Mike was working had faulty equipment.

Though working conditions were severe, the immigrants cannot protest for fear of losing their jobs. The examples in the book of early union attempts both before and after George arrives in Braddock and the strikes that left men dead or without jobs was a harsh reality, and a way that many bosses intimidated workers into accepting pitiful pay and working conditions. It was either work for what was offered, and oftentimes working in the steel mills on twelve hour shifts for seven days a week, or let one’s family starve.

For George and other immigrants, one way of supplementing their harsh reality was to take in boarders. As such, small living spaces became even smaller when boarders were added. This plight then meant that women were not only cooking for their own families, but for several other men (and possibly wives and/or children) at the same time, as well as laundry and cleaning. Women such as Dorta and Mary engaged in this type of supplemental income to keep their children fed and roofs over their head, especially when, at least for these two women, their husbands died in mill accidents. Like Dorta, however, keeping boarders was not enough for many women. Dorta eventually had to remarry, something that George comments on in passing when he cites her youth and need for a husband after Mike’s death. 

With the later generations of immigrants in the novel, fighting for one’s beliefs is a recurring theme. George and his generation took the injustice lodged against them in stride, wanting more to just keep their jobs than cause trouble or suffer from unemployment. They may have complained to themselves, but they did not take their indignity public. Mike Dobrejcak begins to feel the need to fight for his beliefs, especially as he becomes involved in politics, despite George’s protestations. Their view of fighting highlights their generational viewpoints. Mike is a newer generation, and wants his life to turn out better than it is. His attempt at thinking like Americans, even though he cannot vote initially, shows his willingness to fight for his beliefs and make a change to affect those beliefs. Later, Mike votes for Eugene Debs despite George again telling him not to get involved. Though Mike expects repercussions from the steel company, he has effectively stood up for what he believes in.

Dobie is representative of the newest generation, and his decision to become involved in the labor movement is indicative of his belief in self-worth and fighting for one’s beliefs. Like his father Mike Dobrejcak, Dobie does not like how workers are treated. The unfair deductions in his pay when he works in construction during the strike is one such example. Dobie’s insistence on fairer treatment and the place of unions in bringing about this change stems from his father’s belief in worker rights, and the overall belief in human dignity as evidenced by many immigrants’ beliefs in the novel. Dobie is made to work harder than other workers, and is even passed up as far as wages and hours by newer workers because of his involvement with the union. It is his belief in fighting for one’s worth that keeps him going during these hard times, and what eventually helps the union win out over the steel industry in the end.