Furnaces
Visions of the American Dream and Nightmare in Braddock
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22326756 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John C Spurlock (Seton Hill University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 31 |
| Pages | 69-75 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Folia linguistica et litteraria (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1800-8542 • E-ISSN: 2337-0955 |
| Publisher | Faculty of Philology - University of Montenegro (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.31902/fll.31.2020.6 |
| OpenAlex | W3037772092 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
Two works of fiction, one a novel, the other a movie, provide a harrowing journey from the American Dream to the American nightmare. Appearing about 70 years apart, Out of this Furnace (by Thomas Bell) and Out of the Furnace (directed by Scott Cooper) closely examine the lives of steelworking families in Braddock, Pennsylvania. The novel shows the hopes and aspirations of Slovak immigrants slowly improving their material lot over three generations. The movie fast forwards through two more generations to show Braddock in terminal decline, a victim of deindustrialization and all the social ills of America’s economic inequality. Taken together these works reveal the arc of American economic development in the 20th century as experienced in the lives of those who experienced it most directly
Deindustrialization · Dream · Immigration · Nightmare · Political science · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · History · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |