Scott Nelson. "Who Was John Henry? Railroad Construction, Southern Folklore, and the Birth of Roch and Roll." _Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas_ Vol. 2. No. 2 Summer 2005 page 53-79.

John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend by Guy B. Johnson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929).

A little hard to find, this book should be available at most major libraries. Johnson, a faculty member at the Institute for Research in Social Science at UNC, made the first concerted attempt to track down the origins of the legend, the tradition and the songs.

John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography by Brett Williams. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983).

Brett explores the question of Henry's authenticity, discusses the John Henry tradition in song and story and offers an appraisal of his heroic appeal and role in African-American culture. The book contains extensive bibliographies of printed, visual and recorded John Henry materials.

A Treasury of American Folklore, B. A. Botkin, ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1944)

Pages 230-240 discuss the role of John Henry as a folk hero and his status in the African-American community during the early part of this century. The book discusses some of the controversy surrounding his authenticity and provides lyrics to 28 verses of one song recounting his life beginning at birth.

A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore by Harold Courlander (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.).

On pages 383-392, Courlander discusses the origin of the John Henry epics and how they reflect the historical struggle of man and machine. Courlander discusses the legend of John Henry's birth and provides a sample from a Jamaican John Henry work song.

Heroes, Outlaws & Funny Fellows of American Popular Tales by Olive Beaupre Miller (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1973)

Pages 147-157 - "John Henry's Contest With the Big Steam Drill" - recounts the legendary story in a simple, straightforward narrative and describes how it came to be a popular work song for steel drivers.

Great American Folklore, Kemp P. Battley, ed. (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1986.

"John Henry, the Steel-Drivin' Man" (pages 134-140) offers an alternative narrative of the John Henry versus machine contest legend.

American Folklore by Richard M. Dorson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).

Dorson discusses the John Henry legend in the context of African-American songs and epics current in the last decades of the 19^th and early part of the 20^th centuries. The book also discusses the contrasts between the Johnny Appleseed, John Henry and Casey Jones legends.

Folk-Songs of the South, John Harrington Cox, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925).

Pages 175-188 discuss the historical background on John Hardy, identified by some as the source o the John Henry tradition. The book also provides nine alternative ballads collected during the early decades of this century from the Kentucky-West Virginia area.

Negro Workaday Songs by Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1926).

Pages 221-240 discuss variations and consistencies in the John Henry story and songs in the Southern U.S. early in the century. The authors provide 11 variations in lyrics plus four work song variations.

Negro Folk Music, USA by Harold Courlander (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963).

Courlander discusses (pages 110-115) the role of John Henry songs in southern railroad and labor camps and provides lyrics from a John Henry variant recorded in Alabama. A later section also discusses the impact of the ballad on the development of the Blues.

McNeil provides a 10-verse variation of the song with a brief discussion of its origins and performances by Blues singers.

Here's Audacity! American Legendary Heroes by Frank Shay (New York: The Macaulay Co., 1930).

A straightforward, narrative retelling of the John Henry legend (pages 245-254).

The Hurricane's Children by Carl Carmer (New York: Farar & Rinehart, 1937).

A narrative recounting of a Georgia version of the John Henry tradition.

Tall Tale America: A Legendary History of our Humerous Heroes by Walter Blair (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1944)

Bibliography of American Folklore: Index to Materials in Books on Select American Folk Characters by Marjorie Crammer.

Classroom Teaching Guide by The Smithsonian Institution Folklife Program.

Classroom Teaching Guide by Fresno City Unified School District, California.

John Henry and Mr. Goldberg: The Relationship between Blacks and Jews by Jack Nusan Porter. (Journal of Ethnic Studies, v. 7, n. 3, p. 73-86 Fall 1979).

John Henry by Julius Lester (pictures by Jerry Pinkney) (New York: Dial Books, 1994).

Plays of Black Americans: Episodes From the Black Experience in America, Sylvia E. Kamerman, ed. (Boston:Plays, Inc., 1994)

African-American Folktales for Young Readers, collected and edited by Richard Alan Young and Judy Dockrey Young.

A Natural Man: The True Story of John Henry, by Steve Sanfield (illustrated by Peter Thornton). (Boston: D.R. Godine, 1986)

A Man Ain't Nothin' But a Man: the Adventures of John Henry, by John Oliver Killens.1st ed. (Boston : Little, Brown, 1975)

John Henry; A Folk-Lore Study, by Louis W. Chappell (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1968)

John Henry, An American Legend, by Ezra Jack Keats. (New York : Pantheon Books, 1965).

John Henry and The Double Jointed Steam-Drill, by Irwin Shapiro, (drawings by James Daugherty) (New York : J. Messner, 1945)