Tom Grogan

Tom Grogan is a novel published in 1896 by Francis Hopkinson Smith that was the best selling book in the United States in 1896. The novel also ran in the The Century Magazine starting in December 1895, with illustrations from Charles Stanley Reinhart. A spirited and most entertaining and ingenious study of laboring life in Staten Island, New York. Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838–1915) was a United States author, artist and engineer. He built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty, wrote many famous stories and received awards for his paintings. Tom Grogan was a stevedore, who died from the effects of an injury. With a family to support, his widow conceals the fact of her husband's death, saying that he is sick in a hospital, that she may assume both his name and business. She is thenceforth known to every one as 'Tom Grogan.' A sturdy, cheery, capable Irishwomen, she carries on the business with an increasing success, which arouses the jealous opposition of some rival stevedores and walking delegates of the labor union she has refused to join.