Life in the Iron Mills

by Rebecca Harding Davis

NOTE: Includes a broad selection of historical and cultural documents plus the novella

This definitive edition reprints the text of Rebecca Harding Davis Life in the Iron Mills together with a broad selection of historical and cultural documents that open up the novella to the consideration of a range of social and cultural issues vital to Davis' nineteenth century. A general introduction providing historical and cultural background, a chronology of Davis' life and times, an introduction to each thematic group of documents, headnotes, extensive annotations, a generous selection of illustrations, and a selected bibliography make this volume the definitive scholarly text of this classic work of industrial fiction.

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Life in the iron-mills: the complete text --
Introduction: cultural and historical background --
A note on the text --
Life in the iron-mills (1861 Atlantic Monthly edition) --
Life in the iron-mills: cultural context --
Work and class --
The village blacksmith / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --
That aristocracy may be engendered by manufactures / Alexis de Tocqueville --
Iron interests of wheeling / A.W. Campbell --
Senate testimony from iron foundry proprietor / John Roach --
In Soho on Saturday night (song) / Anonymous --
Perils- immigration / Josiah Strong --
The Anglo-Saxon and the world's future / Josiah Strong --
Senate testimony on the kitchen garden movement / Anna Gordon --
Ten nights in a bar-room (excerpt) / T.S. Arthur --
The Quaker of the olden time / John Greenleaf Whittier --
The Quaker settlement (from uncle tom's cabin) / Harriet Beecher Stowe --
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (excerpt) / Edward Bellamy --
Art and artists --
An inquiry into the art-conditions and prospects of America / James Jackson Jarves --
Art thoughts (excerpt) / James Jackson Jarves --
Hints to American artists / Anonymous --
Conversations in a studio (excerpt)William Wetmore Story --
The Stewart art gallery / Anonymous --
The process of sculpture / Anonymous --
The Greek slave / Anonymous --
A sculptor's studio (from the marble faun) / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
Roderick Hudson (excerpt) / Henry James --
/ Senate testimony on the arts and art education in the United States / Wilson McDonald --
Senate testimony on industrial art schools for women / Florence Elizabeth Cory --
Women and writing: the public platform --
Letter to George D. Ticknor / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
The great lawsuit (excerpt) / Margaret Fuller --
St. Elmo (excerpt) / Augusta Evans Wilson --
Literary women / Caroline Kirkland --
Ruth Hall (excerpt) / Fanny Fern --
A New England girlhood (excerpt) / Lucy Larcom --
Little Women (excerpt) / Louisa May Alcott --
Life and letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (excerpt) / Annie Fields.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, School, Historical Fiction, 19th Century, American

435 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1861

About the author

Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis (born Rebecca Blaine Harding) was an American author and journalist. She is deemed a pioneer of literary realism in American literature. She graduated valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary in Pennsylvania. Her most important literary work is the novella Life in the Iron Mills, published in the April 1861 edition of the Atlantic Monthly which quickly made her an established female writer. Throughout her lifetime, Davis sought to effect social change for blacks, women, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working class, by intentionally writing about the plight of these marginalized groups in the 19th century.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Susan L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the narrative technique used in this short story / novella. Interesting commentary on the "hunger" of the artist.

ETA: Also, the tension between realism and romanticism is great to read. And the symbolism. The symbolism is off the charts; my brain almost exploded geeking out over it.

I wrote a paper on this work about the power art has over people and the necessity for the artist to accept that, be comfortable with it, even learn to use it to his/her advantage. To prove my point I pitted Hugh Wolfe and his korl woman against the narrator and this story.

[Kaylin (The Re-Read Queen) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finals have descended upon me and here I am catching up before my American Lit final on Monday. Don't judge me

This was really important for the day and says really important things about class and gender and disability. But it's also really drawn out, over-explains and is very on-the-nose. I didn't enjoy reading it, but there's tons of great topics to be explored??

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

A short story/novella that does a great job exposing the injustices suffered by iron mill workers in the nineteenth century. Rebecca Harding Davis's commitment to realism tears away any romanticized notions of these laborers' awful working conditions. She incorporates several intriguing ideas into her piece, including the dehumanization of the working class's bodies and minds, the unfortunate importance of money to those who will never have it, and the sheer unfairness of industrialist capitalism for those born in unfavorable positions. I also appreciated the slight feminist themes in Life in the Iron Mills.

My two-star rating stems from my own preference against Davis's rather drawn-out writing style, as well as her overt reliance on religious salvation. Of course the message of Life in the Iron Mills matters. I just did not like its delivery much.

[Bettie]

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/876

[Julia Lehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

what if this was my favorite thing i’ve ever read what then

[Mickey Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review of Hazard of New Fortunes... Similar subject matter, without the shallow resentment directed towards the financially well off. This book depicts the less fortunate with genuine sympathy, while also asking questions that transcend social class, such as how one can find fulfillment in a job that seems trivial. Very short, only about 30-50 pages depending on the print, but it is an excellent story.

Side note, what the heck is with the writing style? Does anyone else think it is experimental? Or sloppy? It's tough to tell the difference sometimes :P Definitely does not seem like it was written when it was (1861).

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous and vastly ignored book.

[sam t. · Rating 2 out of 5]

boringggggg. i mean if emily dickinson liked it it's probs good but def not for me. i'm sure it had a good message at the time and was very powerful but it was too long for a short story and boring. maybe i just hate classic literature.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published in the 1860s, this book provides an eye opening account of a mill-workers wretched life and struggle to escape the bounds of his class. Powerfully written and a thinly disguised criticism of slavery, this narrative is a good reminder of all we take for granted in our middle class lives. The dialogue was a bit difficult to understand at times but I appreciated the agency and voice Harding-Davis gives to the downtrodden and poor.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never knew Rebecca Harding Davis was from Southwestern Penna., so this is a nice surprise on a few levels. I highly recommend this short stroy. It's easy to get through, somewhat surprisingly (perhaps because of the approach the author takes to telling this story). I found this story really moving. AaHarding davis uses mazing imagery and a tone that works quite well. Very interesting labor history meets short fiction. Great stuff.

[Caitlin N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

School read. One passage made me cry. I may just be crying from exhaustion at this point, though.
Yay for Davis being ahead of her time with the whole Realism thing.
Super heavy-handed and didactic. A little Dickensian, now that I think about it.
Lot of Biblical and color imagery.
Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. Yay American Lit.

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

[cellar door · Rating 4 out of 5]

revolutionary at its time, and still this story could apply to a person in the working class today

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possible the best short story I've ever read. Not just because the style is superior in all measures but because there is that thing that most writers only dream of: that skill to draw your breath wherever it pleases and keep you captive until the end.

Suggested by my sister Megha

[Hope Tull · Rating 2 out of 5]

American lit

[Christian Matson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Life in The Iron Mills" is a piece of literature that should be read by all. This text depicts the different class systems in the late 19th century. By building a grim atmosphere, and using characters who yearn for freedom and wealth, Rebecca Davis manifests an image of America during a time of struggle and melancholy.

[elias · Rating 4 out of 5]

i could write a whole extended essay on the setting alone, interesting commentary on the interpersonal relationships between men and women, good use of metaphors, loved it!

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

super interesting book. very clean writing and intentional diction. I loooovveeee the imagery and all the hidden meaning enclosed everywhere. however it could get a bit rambly at times, but I think it was necessary for the reader at the time so I can’t rly complain

(read for class)

[Jesse Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

The entry on realism in A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia brings this up, and it's not hard to see the linear connection between Clyde Griffiths of An American Tragedy and this story's Hugh Wolfe, though the latter is shockingly more wretched, as we might expect of an 1861 Welsh mill worker:

Physically, Nature had promised the man but little. He had already lost the strength and instinct vigor of a man, his muscles were thin, his nerves weak, his face (a meek, woman's face) haggard, yellow with consumption. In the mill he was known as one of the girl-men: "Molly Wolfe" was his sobriquet. He was never seen in the cockpit, did not own a terrier, drank but seldom; when he did, desperately.

Shades of Dreiser's realist tones show up in the writing of Rebecca Harding Davis, and for the same reasons, too, to bluntly unveil the social reality that darkens and blots out the will to life and love, as in the portrait of Wolfe's only likely match in the community, Deborah:

Yet he was kind to her: it was his nature to be kind, even to the very rats that swarmed in the cellar: kind to her in just the same way. She knew that. And it might be that very knowledge had given to her face its apathy and vacancy more than her low, torpid life. One sees that dead, vacant look steal sometimes over the rarest, finest of women's faces,—in the very most, it may be, of their warmest summer's day; and then one can guess at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no one guessed it; so the gnawing was the fiercer.

To read the piece is to take a step back to an early example of raising awareness of inequality in America, which apparently Rebecca Harding Davis certainly achieved, along with the magazine she published with, The Atlantic. It's so cool that the magazine formats the story on its website like a contemporary piece. I happened to find the audio file on LibriVox, thanks to Elizabeth Klett for recording. This would be an excellent piece for advanced high school readers. The Wikipedia entry for it is unusually rich in material, too.

[Lady Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hugh Wolfe in “Life In The Iron Mills” inspires the most tragic pathos in anybody who can faintly relate to him. He appears to exhibit magnificent talent in the art of sculpture, but has neither time nor money to pursue this aspiration. His time is absorbed into the vacuum of the interests of the corporate monster, and his wages are hardly enough for basic necessities. Without the proper monetary resources, Wolfe is unable to chase after his dream of becoming a sculptor. When the visitors to the company debated helping Wolfe, Mitchell said it bluntly: “Yes, money, that is it. You’ve found the cure for all the world’s diseases” (20). That sounds like a very cold, but very de facto way of thinking about money in the modern capitalistic world. Without money, Wolfe cannot pursue his dream to become a sculptor. This suggests that creative talent is often not enough in world that operates mainly on money and all things superficial.

The visitors cannot help Wolfe because it is against the spirit of capitalism, which embraces low wages in order to obtain high profits. The author seems to suggest that capitalism is corrupt system in which the few benefit from the tribulations of the peasantry. It is not to the rich man’s advantage to help his servants succeed because that would translate to the end of his corporate empire. Without uneducated and dreamless individuals willing to slave for another man under the agonizing whip of necessity, the capitalist state would disintegrate because it is founded on the crumbled dreams of these individuals. Capitalist success and society’s comfort depends on the unenlightened man’s willingness to do work that would repulse the average bourgeois, and capitalism depends on the destruction of the dignity of these hopeless individuals: “Something is lost in the passage of every soul from one eternity to the other,-- something pure and beautiful which might have been and was not: a hope, a talent, a love, over which the soul mourns, like Esau deprived of his birthright. What blame to the meek Quaker, if she took her lost hope to make the hills of heaven more fair” (37). This touching quote suggests that life is unfair, and many people have only death to which to look forward.

[Nuriah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was abducted into an apocalyptic scene where puddlers are doomed for hard work in hellish conditions. Also, the narrative technic that Harding Davis uses is so captivating that the reader finds himself part of the life of the characters. It makes you feel pretty much involved in these very dehumanizing and slave-like social conditions of the working class in the "urbanized" parts of America. As a matter of fact, it is a "modern hell" that swallows down the lives of many people like Deborah and Hugh. How some things as insignificant as might be considered by people of the upper-class such as Kirby and Clark, might be very decisive when it comes to the lives of others who belong to a different social category; money. Money as Deborah keeps repeating when she stole it from Mitchell is thought to be the life saver and the key to Happiness. Instead, it brought her more pain and sufferance and she was way better off without it. Consequently, Hugh had to give up on his life because he sees no meaning of it anymore, not at that moment nor afterwards. The dramatic ending had me dropping few tears for I so much sympathized with Hugh and his vision over his life from the prison unto the market.

[Regina Betz · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy Hawthorne's use of symbols, you'll find Davis's novella, "Life in the Iron Mills," worthwhile. The nineteenth-century plot is a seemingly simple read. However, it proves to be multi-faceted if you delve deeper into the novel; it provides heavy social, political, religious, and gender roles commentary.
Davis tactfully constructs each character; the dialogue and narration of the story are extremely powerful. The writer displays America's grotesque industralization in a manner comparable to the British sentimentality of Dickens; the animalistic naturalism of Crane, Dreiser, or Norris in American naturalism; and the muckraker-mentality of Upton Sinclair.

I thoroughly enjoyed interpreting this read, and I'm still contemplating: what were Davis's intentions with Hugh Wolfe, Deborah, the Korl woman?

My Nineteenth-Century American Literature class surveyed an interesting question: Is Davis suggesting in her text that the corruption of the iron-mills is just as horrid as slavery's system?

[Nicole Aceto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving call to arms for those who struggle to make a living

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three stars represent my take on Realism. Rebecca Harding Davis does a beautiful job of spitting in the reader's eye and making the reader hate this book, or at least the circumstances of this book. It is not a happy tale and the book is not meant to be enjoyed. I believe it is meant to inspire sympathy, but, to me, Davis only inspires disdain. She treats her audience as cruely as poverty treats Hugh Wolfe. She does not inspire sympathy, eventhough her cast of characters deserve it. Badly done, Mrs. Davis.

[Rebecca]

I stumbled upon this book quite by accident. It was during my five years in a women's monastery and it happened to be on a CD I received along with a new computer I acquired for transcribing texts and scanning books. I normally would not have read something as unrelated to our life as this, but I went ahead and read it anyway, as the subject matter dealt with Welsh iron mill workers and I could hardly have resisted a book which ignited my latent, (dormant), political activist sensibilities. I wept.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read Life in the Iron Mills in this collection, and honestly it was incredible.

Others in my class called it boring and long and grinding. I found it fascinating.

There is something in the dreariness of Davis' words that communicates the daily grind of 19th century America. And yet her language is beautiful; striking in only the way old English - proper English - can be. And perhaps I am too much of an English major snob, but I liked the complexity of her syntax.

That being said, the plot itself is super awesome.

I would read more of her works.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this story for my American Literature class and honestly, this story did not do much for me. It jumped around from the narrator to the story too much and within the story the narrator skipped over times such as before Hugh goes to prison. Also there is the unrequited love of sorts between Deborah and Hugh (and they are cousins) it just throws me off.
One idea about this story that I did love is the portrayal of everyone during the industrial times, it was very meek and dull but that added to how the workers attitudes were.

[Rebecca Cantor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had a hard time deciding what to rate this story. It has many great aspects. I appreciate the metaphor of artist as hungry. I appreciate that it's about an awkward hunchbacked woman, and a weak, unpopular artist who works at an Iron Mill. I loved the beginning, especially the clipped sentences like, "I am going to be honest. This is what I want you to do. I want you to hide your disgust..." But overall, I found it rather dull and difficult to get through. Please tell me why I'm wrong!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like how this story was written. After doing some research on it, I discovered that it was written during an election year. Rebecca Harding Davis say fit to mention the hard working Immigrant families in her piece and how hungry they were for a better life that would not come. All in all, the story ends with a sense of hope for the future!

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an assigned reading for my Women in Literature class, and I thought, although it was very sad, that it was an interesting read based on how society and industry itself has changed and evolved through U.S. history. Well written and a very quick read.