The Immigrant Experience
The thematic foundation upon which the story is constructed is that of the immigrant experience in America. Specifically, the non-English-speaking middle-European immigrant experience in Pennsylvania. Through the bloodline of the Kracha family, the novel offers a panoramic vision of the stories of first-, second- and third-generation immigrants which spans their failed dreams, tragedies, prejudices, and ultimate successes that prove the journey was worthwhile.
The American Dream
The motivation for the Kracha family making the Slovakia is not merely to escape the oppressive occupation of Hungarian rule, but to pursue the American Dream. The novel paints a portrait of how this Dream is not one solid monolithic ideal, but a hope which can be molded and formed to fit individual ambitions. George Kracha arrives with little interest or intent in assimilation, remains politically inactive and doesn’t even bother to learn English. His future son-in-law is exactly the opposite, trying and struggling to attain American Dream of middle-class stability and respectability.
The Rise of Organized Labor
Running like a steel girder through the foundation of immigrant pursuit of the American Dream is the story of organized labor in the steel industry. Mike Dobrejcak comes to American from Slovakia with a greater ambition than George already intact; he refuses a job offer off the boat to pursue education. This intellectual development allows him to see working in the steel mills beyond the lowest common denominator of a steady job providing a steady income to recognize it as a dangerous job providing an unfair income. He will attempt to make a difference as a devotee of socialist ideology only to run headfirst into a mill ownership too firmly connected to a powerful political machine. The panoramic scope of the novel covers the transition from anti-worker Republican dominance of the Gilded Age into the ascension of the pro-worker New Deal administration of the Democrats in which Mike’s son Dobie will accomplish everything he himself could not.
