Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Out of This Furnace, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Immigration and American Identity
Industrialization and Destruction
The American Dream vs. Reality
Women’s Work
Capital vs. Labor
Summary
Analysis
In Homestead, Andrew Carnegie hires notorious union-buster Henry Clay Frick to break the striking union at the Homestead mill during contract negotiations. Kracha has little interest in the strike but Andrej warns him that the fate of all workers is tied to the union. “Don't fool yourself,” he tells Kracha, “If the union lets Frick have his way it will be the finish for everybody.” In response to the strike, Frick shuts down the Homestead mill.
The determination of capital, represented by Carnegie and Frick, to break the unions demonstrates their power and, by extension, the relative weakness of labor at the turn of the century. Dubik recognizes capital’s resolve to crush organized labor, and he understands that the fate of the unions has grave ramifications for all workers, union and non-union alike.
Themes
The Homestead Strike of 1892 begins as a peaceful lockout. On July 6, however, the mill’s whistle awakens Kracha to the sound of violence. Frick sends armed Pinkerton guards to reopen the plant, resulting in a gunfight. Unable to get into the mill, Kracha looks for Andrej, to no avail. He returns home to Francka, and Andrej eventually returns with news that the battle is over. Ten men lay dead and 60 are wounded. The Pinkertons surrender, but the following Monday the state militia descends on the mill. They arrest the strikers and charge them with murder, riot, and conspiracy. “Do not think we will ever have any serious labor trouble again,” Frick tells Carnegie: “We had to teach our employees a lesson and we have taught them one that they will never forget.” Work resumes in the mill under the company’s terms. The union is shattered.
The real-life Homestead strike was one of the most violent incidents in the history of American organized labor. In the novel, it demonstrates the extreme power imbalance between capital and labor. Frick and Carnegie are able to muster their own private resources, as well as marshal the power of the state to break the striking workers. Against these odds, the union has little chance of success. The resulting despair over the vanishing of the unions gives Bell’s story an overwhelming sense of hopelessness until the unions finally reemerge at the end.
Themes
Fed up with the chaos in Homestead, Kracha asks Dubik to secure him a job in the Braddock steel mill. The Krachas move to Braddock, and Kracha works for nearly a month before Dorta finds his family a room in a house on the company cinder dump. Meanwhile, Carnegie builds a library for the workers in Homestead.
Here, Bell criticizes Carnegie’s hypocrisy. He claims to care about his workers’ well-being, but instead of giving them better wages and conditions, he builds a library that they will not have time to use.
Themes
