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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Copyright 1941 by Thomas Bell
Thomas Bell, 1903-1961
Read once as a youth. Bought for $10 on May 4, 2021 for an Osher at Pitt class with Dr. Nick Coles.
Labor conditions: 20-21, 46-47,
Labor history: 23-24, ch.9 pp. 39-44,
Politics: 65-66,
Children and women treated as second class
?? What must conditions have been like to drive them to these! pp. 56, 59, no agency p. 167
Sad, yet accepting, at best indomitable (p. 48 end of ch. 10)
Illiterate - most, certainly, but all? Mike Dobrecjcak’s father a notar.
Finances: not possible to get ahead? Controlling rhythm p. 39
Can afford transatlantic fares.
How do they get money to Slovakia?
Tie-ins with history: library, Slovak military service, superintendents,
The controlling factor in his life: He worked and saved and then something happened and he was back where he'd started. pp. 39, 60
Labor Day - and ironic mock? And meaningless sop to the working classes. Knights of Labor & AFofL 1882, first state holiday (OR) 1887
Nothing on labor activism elsewhere, e.g., Haymarket in Chicago, May 4, 1886
Negros 270, 316, 327, 330,
Mike’s social vision, p. 199
Mike’s religious feelings in the church, pp. 170-71
GEORGE KRACHA
He left behind him in a Hungarian village a young wife, a sister and a widowed mother;
the endless poverty and oppression which were the birthrights of a Slovak peasant...
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Time & place. Realism.
Legendary disasters
It was likely that aboard ship he would meet Slovaks who were going his way or were being met in New York by relatives; their help should be his for the asking.
Andrej Sedlar,
The warnings had not been entirely necessary.
Haha
Haha
Zuska
John Mihula,
She was as dark as her husband was fair, as lively as he was grave,
whisky and German wine
One week to the day after leaving New York,
White Haven?”
Andrej Sedlar.”
Joe Dubik,
Rusnak, a Greek Catholic Slovak,
“Djuro—
Francka
they were smarter than gipsies,
Dubik
until I've bought what I need nobody is getting me inside a saloon.”
Whisky and beer.
She is all alone in the world, poor girl, except for me. And her husband, of course.”
Hsha
Haha
Did she think you were spending money on her because you liked the color of her eyes? She owes you a debt and if you ever meet her again make her pay. With interest.”
Chance had made them buddies,
time made them good friends.
an extremely likable younger brother
His exuberant joy in living,
“God be good to him,” said Kracha. “I've had a son and lost him without ever laying an eye on him.”
a peasant's one-room hut with the naked earth for a floor—
the money Kracha sent each month,
The solutions to these problems, which Kracha dictated to Andrej, who had learned to read and write in the Army, satisfied no one in Europe or America,
In a little over a year Kracha had repaid the twenty dollars Andrej had loaned him so that he could come to America, and had put by fifteen dollars.
How is so much money sent ?
$30 in 1885 is c. $820 today.
Simile
On the job they did little but shovel snow, shim rails and keep the switches workable.
“Bohze moj!
Bože moj! O My God! in Slovak
In a highland country where goiter among both men and women was common Elena's throat had always been too plump for the rest of her.
so perhaps might have saved them both a world of heartache.
“Vitajce u nas.
Vitajce u naš welcome to ours.
Her poor health, or America, had changed her; Kracha never could decide.
healthy girl, cheerful as the day was long; now she seldom smiled and went about her housework listlessly.
Kracha asked her, sometimes gently, sometimes not, what was wrong she invaria...
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to such attentions she responded satisfactorily yet never with enough impetus to carry over into bed. Kracha consequently felt swindled, then baffled, then angry.
He’s not terribly bright, is he. Haha
