Part 1, Chapters 1-5 Summary

Out of This Furnace by Thomas Bell is the story of a Slovak family's immigration to America. The novel tells the story of one family and its trials and tribulations as they make their way from Hungary to America. The story of three generations of the Kracha family is given in the novel from the first immigrant in the family, George Kracha to the third generation represented by Dobie Dobrejcak. The reader follows the family as they make their way in America.

"George Kracha came to America in the fall of 1881, by way of Budapest and Bremen. He left behind him in a Hungarian village a young wife, a sister and a widowed mother; it may be that he hoped he was likewise leaving behind the endless poverty and oppression which were the birthrights of a Slovak peasant in...