Talk:Joe Magarac

Croatian?
I came to this article when I saw it linked elsewhere exactly to find out if the word "magarac" meaning donkey in Croatian (and Serbian and Bosnian - the omission of these languages makes me doubt the motives of the editor who provided this info) had any particular meaning to this character or not. As it is now, there is a blunt insertion of this fact(oid) into the article, but there is no explanation, nothing to prove that this is not merely a coincidence, as I believe it most probably is. Unless somebody can prove an actual correlation between the name and the South Slavic word, I'll delete that insertion in a week or so. TomorrowTime 15:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I've cited this. The connection is that there were Croatian steelworkers in the mills where Owen Francis first heard the story.  (According to the paper I cited, there are other Croatian surnames in the story that help pin down its origin, but it doesn't say what they are and I don't have access to the paper it cites on the subject.)  &mdash;Cel  ithemis  23:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The mill section of Pittsburgh did historically have a significantly larger proportion of Croatian immigrants than of other South Slavic groups (based on neighborhood directories of the period listing multiple Croatian social union halls), and thus it seems not unlikely that it was drawn specifically from Croatian usage. -FZ 22:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That would make perfect sense then. Thanks for the citation. TomorrowTime 20:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Too bad I have no way of accesing JSTOR from my part of the world. That looks like an interesting article. Sigh. TomorrowTime 20:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

New Mascot
Steely McBeam is the new Joe Magarac. Too bad McBeam does not work on the city's infrastructure such as water main breaks. Rauterkus 21:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Further research is needed on “fakelore”
Following the Gilley and Burnett article (“Deconstructing and Reconstructing Pittsburgh's Man of Steel…”), this article traces the origin of the Joe Magarac legend to 1931. Yet it also mentions that Charles Keck sculpted a figure of Joe Magarac for the Manchester Bridge, which opened in 1915. The article includes a 1918 photograph of that sculpture. Unless Keck himself made up the character, it was already well known in Pittsburgh by the time he made the sculpture, since it was one of a set of figures supposed to be typical of Pittsburgh folklore and history. Clearly the assertion about the 1931 origin is wrong, but it has a reputable source, so someone needs to do some research in the Internet Archive, Google Books, and so on. When I’m not bogged down in paying projects, I’ll attempt it myself, but meanwhile if anyone has more time, here’s a project that would earn the gratitude of Pittsburgh historians.

Cbaile19 (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It's also possible that the 1931 origin of Magarac is correct and that the popular identification of Keck's steelworker and miner as Joe Magarac and Jan Volkanik is incorrect. I'm skeptical that Magarac and Volkanik, whose names have not been found in print before 1931 and 1934, respectively, would have been familiar figures in c. 1915 when Keck decorated the bridge. T. Cadwallader Phloog (talk) 11:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * PS - Some sources identify the figures at one end of the bridge specifically as Christopher Gist and Guyasuta but those at the other end generically as a steelworker (or mill worker) and coal miner. T. Cadwallader Phloog (talk) 14:47, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, that’s a good suggestion. I think research can go in two directions. One is to try to find mentions of Joe Magarac before 1931. Another is to see what was said about the sculptures on the Manchester Bridge when the bridge was being planned and when it opened. I’ll try to do both as I have time.
 * One way or another, we’ll be able to correct the article—either about the legend or about the bridge.
 * Cbaile19 (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2023 (UTC)