Blood on the Forge is a migration novel by the African-American writer William Attaway set in the steel valley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during 1919, a time when vast numbers of Black Americans moved northward.

Blood on the Forge touches on themes such as the destruction of nature, the emptiness and hunger that the working characters experience, the complications of the individual in a depersonalized world, and the myth of the American Dream.

Factors motivating blacks to migrate north included the plentiful job opportunities in Northern industry, and the desire to escape the harsh racial climate of the South.

[4] Many cultural movements were spawned due to the large influx in black populations in the North, including the Harlem Renaissance and the spread of jazz music.

[5][6] The novel opens in Kentucky, in the year 1919; sharecropping half-brothers Big Mat, Chinatown, and Melody Moss are in dire straits.

Earlier that day, Chinatown and Melody are visited by a white man on horseback who gives them a ten-dollar bill, promising much more if the brothers leave that night on a train that would take them North, to work.

In the midst of the action, Big Mat is repeatedly hit on the back of the head with a pickaxe handle by a young Slavic union member.

The book ends with Melody and Chinatown leaving the mill town as they take a train to Pittsburgh, where they plan to rebuild their lives.

The experience of the characters in the novel mirror the class struggles during the Great Migration, specifically the hardships of African American workers during this period.

"[7] Attaway's novel is also a migration narrative, as it traces the journey of African American brothers from Southern farm life to the industrial North.

After the brothers migrate to Pennsylvania Big Mat focuses his energies on doing well at his new job, and scrupulously saves his money so that he might bring his wife Hattie North.

[11] Edward E. Waldron claims that Big Mat represents "the last side of the complete folk culture, religion, and an equally important tie to the soil.

[10] " John Claborn asserts that while Melody and Chinatown become destroyed in the North, Big Mat "thrives" in his new home, as he, "identifies more with the machines than with his fellow white workers, for they allow him to flourish in a way denied him by Jim Crow.

After leaving the farm, Chinatown, succumbing to the temptations offered by city life in Pennsylvania, becomes fascinated with drinking, gambling, and hiring prostitutes.

Midway through the novel, Chinatown is left blind after an accident at the steel mill and is forced out of work and into the care of Big Mat and Melody.

Phillip H. Vaughan argues that Chinatown's "lazy, happy-go-lucky attitude reflects in part a psychological response to the subjugated position of the Negroes" following the abolition of slavery.

According to Vaughan, Melody's blues singing "recreates and sustains the pastoral myth... and an existence characterized by images of hunger, barrenness, and drudgery".

In an article published in MFS Modern Fiction Studies, John Claborn claims that Smothers is "a prophetic spokesman for the earth's pain.

[11] In the South, Attaway highlights the overworked land, Big Mat's barren wife Hattie, the family’s extreme hunger, and the drudgery of plowing all day with no reward.

"[13] Attaway's use of "mules" in both the South and North, in different contexts, highlights the Moss brothers' "unfamiliarity of the artifacts of industrial technology" as well as the similarities between the two places.

[13] In Kentucky, the Moss brothers had to use newspapers attached to the wall in order to provide a bit of insulation, and they are so hungry that they chose to smoke or chew tobacco in an attempt to suppress their appetites.

[13] One way that they deal with this hunger is through music, and the novel opens with Melody playing the "hungry blues" on his guitar, which he hopes will distract his family members from their empty stomachs.

[13] Metaphorically, the Moss brothers are also "hungry" for other possessions, those that would not satisfy their physical hunger but rather that part of themselves that desired for a comfortable, leisurely life.

Their vastly increased income in the North allows them new opportunities and multiple ways to spend their new capital, emphasizing instant gratification "[13] Morgan also notes that the Moss brothers' fear in the train scene, during which their inability to see each other fills each brother with a terrifying sense of isolation, may be Attway's way of highlighting an issue that confronted many who moved during the Great Migration: the "absence of material links to the family, community, and lifeways of former homes, which w[as] frequently demanded by the circumstances of the migration journey northward—a journey that, for many African Americans, did necessarily commence under cover of night.

"[10] Stacy I. Morgan states that the physical injuries experienced in the mills are extreme examples of the larger process going on: the "transforming [of] workers' sense of time and of their own bodies.

"[13] Phyllis R. Klotman looks at the ways in which the three brothers bodies became tools, a part of machine: "Chinatown is blinded in an accident which eats up the lives of fourteen men; Melody’s hand is smashed so that he is no longer able to play the guitar; Big Mat is killed during the strike which he has become as unwitting tool the bosses wield against the white workers," suggesting that "the three brothers are systematically unmanned by the dehumanizing process of forging steel."

One of the tragic outcomes in the novel, according to Klotman, is the loss of continuity in the lives of men who are almost human sacrifices to the industrial Moloch created by an unseen hand grasping for profits.

"[12] With this act, Attaway may signify a "shift in the workers' consciousness," as "the narration itself seems to gain a heightened awareness of the connection between steel and the ground.

"[12] In addition, Claborn feels that "Smothers is ritually sacrificed for the sake of more direct commentary on steel production as a globally interdependent process.

"[13] In addition, Morgan notes that Anna is "tragically pathetic," forbidden by Big Mat to go out in public, the space "for which such ostentatious apparel is designed.