List of updates to this website since November 2015:  

    November 1, 2015:  Added Part 4 to the website.

    November 16, 2015:  Part 4 was expanded upon by adding Junius Byrd's "run me like an oxen team" version.

    February 22, 2016:  Part 1 was revised by expanding upon the discussion of the significance of the complaint versions of "John Henry."

    September 29, 2016:  In Part 4, the section discussing Furry Lewis's "partner falling dead" versions was expanded by adding another version recorded by Lewis (for a total of three recordings by Lewis of this version).  Also, the discussion of these versions was expanded upon.

    February 7, 2017:  Part 4 was expanded by adding a section discussing the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse.

    March 5, 2017:  Part 4 was expanded by adding Furry Lewis's "Don't you never take no pattern after me" version.

    July 20, 2017:  Part 1 was expanded upon by adding the "Your drill is broke" version.

    January 15, 2018:  Expanded Part 2 by adding a section titled "A Man Ain't Nothin but a Man: John Henry and Racial Equality."

    March 19, 2018:  Revised Part 2's discussion of John Henry's role as a symbol of black manhood to point out that the ballad may have influenced Bob Dylan in composing "Blowin' in the Wind."

    July 4, 2018:   Revised the last section of Part 1 to emphasize the importance of interpreting the ballad in the context of the African American experience during the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era.

    March 17, 2019:  Expanded the section of Part 2 which is titled "A Man Ain’t Nothin’ but a Man: John Henry and Racial Equality."  This update documents that John Lee Hooker asserted racial equality between black and white people in his recording "Birmingham Blues" through use of a variation to the phrase "a man ain't nothin' but a man."

    March 31, 2019:  Expanded the section of Part 2 which is titled "A Man Ain’t Nothin’ but a Man: John Henry and Racial Equality."  This update adds two more examples--one from a book by James Nunn and another from a New York Times article--of African Americans using the phrase "a man ain't nothin' but a man" to assert racial equality.

    April 15, 2020:  Expanded Part 4 by adding W. A. Bates's Payroll verse.