literature
Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910)
“Life in the Iron Mills” (1861)
Background
1831 born in Washington, PA;
then moved to Florence, Alabama
1836 moved to Wheeling, VA (now WV)
1844 entered Washington Female Seminary
1849-61 wrote for Wheeling Intelligencer
1860 sent “Life” to Atlantic Monthly editor James T. Fields
1862 visited Concord and Boston; meets the Alcotts, Hawthorne, Emerson, and others
1963 married Lemuel Clarke Davis
Lived in “border” states for most of her life
Washington Female Seminary: geometry, literature, music, drawing, Evidences in Christianity, Butler’s Analogy
Learned to write by working for a newspaper (Clemens, Howells, Bret Harte, Jack London, Frank Norris, and others follow the same path)
Agreed to write exclusively for the Atlantic Monthly (an agreement that she manipulated several times to write for the Galaxy and Petersons, which paid more but was less prestigious)
Fields as her editor was problematic at best—he asked her to change the ending of her second novel, Margret Howth, so it would be “sunnier”; also had her change titles, usually to that of a male character
Background
1860s had 2 of her children, took the Rest Cure, 3rd child arrived in 1872
1869 began 20 year association with the New York Tribune (resigns in 1889 b/c she felt her articles were censored)
1860-90s Wrote a lot!
1904 husband Clarke died
1910 Davis died of a stroke
Key Texts
1861 “Life in the Iron Mills”
1862 Margret Howth
1868 Waiting for the Verdict, Dallas Galbraith
1871 Natasqua
1874 Kitty’s Choice: A Story of Berrytown, John Andross
1877 A Law Unto Herself
1892 Kent Hampden
1896 Dr. Warwick’s Daughters
1897 Francis Waldeaux
Over 500 pieces in her lifetime; 10 novels in book form, 16 serialized novels, numerous stories and essays
“Life in the Iron Mills” (1861)
Published in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly
Atlantic Monthly version
Key Issues
One of the first American stories to address industrialization (Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of the Maids” is the earliest)
Life of the worker/ working class
Social Class—workers and middle class gentlemen
19th Century Iron Mills in Art
Adolph Menzel, Iron Mill (1872/75)
Lowell Mills
Key Issues
Woman Artist
Woman Artist (Hugh and the korl woman; Davis herself)
Kunstlerroman—novel of an artist’s growth, often in the face of stifling conditions (related to bildungsroman)
19th C Sculpture
Undine Rising from the Water, Chauncey Ives (1855)
Falling Gladiator, William Rimmer (1861)
Key Issues
Form
Hybrid form—elements of romanticism, sentimentalism, realism, and naturalism
Can you find characteristics associated with each of these?
Often read as a push toward Realism!
The Ending?
What is the “promise of the dawn”?
Relationship between environment and destiny?
Possibilities for reform?
Yoking of romanticism and realism/ naturalism?
Resources
Donna Campbell’s author pages:
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/davis.htm