balkany-slowianskie: Joe Magarac

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Joe Magarac is a pseudo-legendary American folk hero. Originally presented as oral folklore told by steelworkers in the city of Pittsburgh, since the 1950s he has been considered an example of pseudo-folklore. He is described as a superhuman steelworker who immigrated from Eastern Europe to western Pennsylvania, where he shaped steel with his bare hands and produced many times the output of a normal laborer. He is a popular symbol of Pittsburgh and its historic steel industry.

Evidence: 36 • authority: 88

Who Murdered Joe Magarac?. In the paper the creation of the mythical hero of the American steel industry Joe magarac is analyzed. The analysis is based on the original text of Owen Francis from 1931 and it endeavors to resolve the quandary of whether this text is of a folklore or fakelore nature. The analysis is multi layered and is comprised from a parallel reading of the Francis text and the folklore elements from the migration country; confronting the meaning of the legend of Joe Magarac with authentic interests of workers in the steel industry and contextualizing the legend inside the social conflicts in the steel industry of Pennsylvania at the meeting point of the XIX and XX century.

Evidence: 28 • authority: 72

John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced trees grown with apple seeds (as opposed to trees grown with grafting) to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the Canadian province of Ontario, as well as the northern counties of West Virginia. He became an American icon while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance that he attributed to apples. He was the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio, and today is recognized as an American folk hero.

Evidence: 22 • authority: 80

Deconstructing and Reconstructing Pittsburgh's Man of Steel: Reading Joe Magarac against the Context of the 20th-Century Steel Industry

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, told as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the European countryside, the American frontier, the Canadian Northwest, the Australian outback, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Events are often told in a way that makes the narrator seem to have been a part of the story; the tone is generally good-natured. Legends are differentiated from tall tales primarily by age; many legends…