Steam drills — driverless cars — and much more to come, I hope and fear. (Law professors?) John Henry may lay down 15 feet to the steam drill’s nine. But even if he doesn’t drive so hard ...

(John Henry's tale is tragic as well as inspiring, of course: The steel driver famously died after racing the steam drill — a fact that gets matter-of-fact mention here.) The first half of ...

But John Henry loved his work, and wouldn't trade it for anything. Then one day a man came along with a fast patter and tried to sell Captain Tommy a steam drill. "This machine can out-drill 20 ...

Historian Theodore Kornweibel estimated that more than 10,000 enslaved workers a year built the southern railroads between ...

In almost 200 folk songs, John Henry drives steel into the Allegheny Mountains for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in a race against a steam drill: “John Henry, O John Henry, Blood am runnin’ red!

But a worker told John Henry about a new machine they were going to use to tunnel through the mountain. It was called a steam drill. “It can hammer faster and harder than ten men and it never ...

There is a famous tale in American folklore about a chap named ‘John Henry’. This apocryphal hero supposedly wanted to prove himself better than the new steam drills that had come on the ...

One firm pioneered the wheezy drills that broke into the 20th century and the modern age. There is a famous tale in American folklore about a chap named ‘John Henry’. This apocryphal hero supposedly ...