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The two comics were produced by the United States Steel
Corporation in To see covers, Click On Link Below
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| Joe Magarac is a folk hero of the Pittsburgh area steel mills. Historians debate whether he was an authentic folk legend or manufactured by newspapermen to give the Pittsburgh steel industry a much needed folk hero. Many believe the legend originated 100 years ago among Hungarian immigrant steel workers. In any case, by the 1930s, the stories of Joe Magarac were well established. He was a huge steel man who would appear out of nowhere to right a falling 50-ton crucible that threatened the lives of the steelworkers. One story alleges that he when he melted himself down in a Bessemer Furnace to make steel for a new mill. Others maintain he’s waiting among the rusting ruins of old Pennsylvania steel mills for the day that the furnaces are burning again. In Hungarian, "Magarac" means "jack ass," a fitting name for a folk hero who worked like a donkey 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. | |
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Joe Magarac (Text and tune by Jacob A. Evanson, 1946. Based on the famous legend.) After learning the many stories about Joe Magarac, steelworkers' folk hero, I wrote this ballad in our folk-song tradition. Joe is a legendary superman who performs incredible feats of strength and skill, as great as the steelworkers' imagination can invent. He is the Paul Bunyan of the steel mills. They say he makes horseshoes and pretzels out of iron ingots with his bare hands. From cooling steel he makes cannon balls as easily as boys make snowballs. He's so tough he can spit right into a Bessemer, and it doesn't dare to spit back at him, And the way he can work! Everybody wants him on his crew, for the tonnage then shoots right up, and likewise wages. More over, it's more comfortable when he's around. For instance, there was the time he caught a ladle with fifty tons of hot "soup" in it when the crane chain broke right above his crew. Not a drop splashed on anybody. And there was the time the dinkey engine with a whole train of loaded ingot-buggies broke loose and headed full steam downhill, right into the front office full of people. Fortunately, Joe caught the last buggy just in the nick of time and pulled the whole train back up hill. No doubt about it, Joe Magarac is the greatest steelworker that ever lived. The Hungarians pronounce his name "Mah-zhe-rahk," the Slovaks, "Mah-geh-rahts," but there are some in Pittsburgh who hold that he is really Joseph Patrick McGarrick! This apparently is the first time the Irish got into the dispute. After a diligent search to determine Joe Magarac's origin, I must acknowledge that the evidence is inconclusive. |
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JOE MAGARAC
I was born in a mountain of
red iron ore This version was recorded by the Phoenix Singers |
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JOE MAGARAC
I'll tell you about a steel
man, |
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Joe Magarac |
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Joe Magarac, the mythical steelworker of legend dominates this panel, shown bending a steel bar. Above Joe are the coke batteries, shown with doors, and without doors, dipicted with the fire within. Rising above the batteries is the hot mill runout table with a steel plate. This table is known as a transfer table. |
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Joe Magarac. The miraculous steelworker who was made of solid steel, so the mill hands insist, and who could squeeze out railroad rails from between his fingers. |
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"Joe Magarac" by Kapajen |
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www.flickr.com/photos/44124349872@N01 |