Life In The Iron Mills Analysis

By the ending of the 19th Century, the qualities of industrialization of the United States were visually obvious. It had become a wealthy, powerful, and important nation, an inspiration among the other countries of the world. But there was a large price to pay for this growth which involved human suffering, and it was only beginning to be realized at that point. The Working conditions during this time were often inhumane; immigrant families engaged in cigar manufacturing, and they lived and worked in overcrowded, foul-smelling tenements. Factories and mines were designed with very minimal concern for worker’s health and safety. Workers worked extremely hard for hours at the bare minimum of wages, and they lacked practically any compensation

Rebecca Harding Davis wrote “Life in the Iron Mills” in the mid-nineteenth century in part to raise awareness about working conditions in industrial mills. With the goal of presenting the reality of the mills’ environment and the lives of the mill workers, Davis employs vivid and concrete descriptions of the mills, the workers’ homes, and the workers themselves. Yet her story’s realism is not objective; Davis has a reformer’s agenda, and her word-pictures are colored accordingly. One theme that receives a particularly negative shading in the story is big business and the money associated with it. Davis uses this negative portrayal of money to emphasize the damage that the single-minded pursuit of wealth works upon the humanity of those

Despite harsh working conditions, farmworkers have worked constantly for years due to the need of necessities for their families along with themselves. After thorough investigation, I have come to a conclusion that even after so many years of protesting as well as working diligently, farmworkers still have experienced unacceptable working conditions, however they were not as bad as the past. There was a definite need for a drastic change due to the working conditions of the farmworkers. Conditions may have improved due to the social justices that Cesar Chavez including The 5 Year Strike has gained. As I was comparing both working conditions of today’s farmworkers with farmworkers of other times in history, I have come to find many differences

“People were forced to work in harsh, dangerous conditions in order to be able to provide for their families” (Document 8). Although most people were grateful to have a job, the conditions that they were forced to work for in order to provide for their families were unfair to them, and their families. Just because they obtained a job one day, doesn’t mean they would have it the next day, for example, if an employee was sick, or injured and had to miss a day of work the employee wasn’t guaranteed to continually have the job after they finally recovered. “I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides of warp which is one girl’s work” (Document 1) working conditions such as these are very harsh for the employees, not only do they have to keep up with the work of four people. Not only do the employees have to keep up with the sea of work, they also have to attempt not to get injured with the very harsh conditions lots of employees did in fact end up with serious injuries. “5 in the morning till 9 at night…” (Document 7) Those were the harsh working hours according to twenty-three year old Elizabeth Bentley. Long hours such as those were very common for factory workers, which made life hard for employees. Not only was harsh working conditions bad, but also the worst consequence that came about through the Industrial Revolution was child

Rebecca Harding Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills’ illustrates class conflict and the exploitative nature of American industrialization. It has been regarded as one of the first notable examples of American realism that portrayed the burdens of industrial factory workers. Davis uses slavery comparisons throughout the novella, this rhetoric threatens the potency of her work.

“I regard my workpeople just as I regard my machinery...When my machines get old and useless, I reject them and get new, and these people are part of my machinery” (Sands 12). A foreman at a textile mill in Fall River, Massachusetts spoke these words in possibly the worst time during American labor history, the Industrial Revolution. During the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of people in the United States flocked to work in factories where they faced long hours, unsanitary and unsafe conditions and poor wages. Labor unions, or groups of organized workers, formed in the United States to ensure workers the right to a safe workplace and a fair wage in the face of capitalistic factory owners seeking wealth. In exchange, union

Farm labor can be one of the most difficult job to handle. From the low wages to the horrible weather and health conditions. Most of these farm labor workers are immigrants who are here in the United States seeking for a better job, and providing for their children’s. However, they do not have a good job and are struggling so bad for their children. The average pay for a field worker is ten dollars per hour. There must be a change to these wages since many workers are working in extremely hot weather conditions that no one can imagine or are willing to work like that. Not only that, but the farmers benefit from them dramatically. In the 1984 address by Cesar E. Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, to the Commonwealth Club of California, uses different appeals to present the unfairness a farm worker faces. His main point is to

After the Civil War, the south was faced with creating a New South. This New South produced new ways of making money to try and help reestablish its economy. One of the ways for southerners to find work was industrialization. Industrialization was the process of producing clothes from cotton, and it resulted in mill villages being formed across the Piedmont landscape (Hall 106). These mills provided jobs for many people who lived in the south who left their work on the farm in search of a different life. Analyzing the relationships between the mills and its workers through resources found throughout the book, The Most They Ever Had, the reader can get a sense of how the workers felt about their labor and what effect the mills had on their lives. The relationships will be described by explaining what the mill work was, what the conditions were like inside the mill, and some of the curricular activities that took place outside the mill. This will help in

In the 1800 factories, working conditions are unfair. In Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson there is a girl who lives in the 1800’s. She work in a factory witch has unfair working conditions and Diana Goss wants to have a petition to make fair working conditions. Some people want Lyddie to sign the petition because then she will have fair working conditions.If she doesn't the she will be able to make money and she will work at a factories.

4. In the essay Women Workers Protest “Lowell Wage Slavery”, it mentions the poor working conditions and boring life for the women workers at Lowell Mills. The author mentions that they had to work for 13 hours each day for six days straight, and on the seventh day, they are required to go to church service, to listening to those dull sermon and unmeaningful prayers. There were also lectures provided for the young women working at the mill. Though some class are free, others requires some fee. In the mill owner’s opinion, they think they are providing benefits for the workers as they are providing education and religion services, but for the workers, it is another way of torture. What the workers’ really need is relaxing and rest, not extra

Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills exhibits an adequate amount of conventions throughout her novella. In particular Davis compromises five conventions within her piece: Sentimentalism, Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism as well as Regionalism and Local Color. Davis substantial imagery closely identifies with realism, self-mastery of passions through Deborah, romanticism through Hugh, dialect as well as Wolfe to depict local color and regionalism ending with naturalism used in the portrayal of the working conditions within the mills.

Identify some of the tactics that at least two different groups of women around the world have adopted to improve labor conditions. Discuss the benefits and limitations of the different kinds of strategies they have pursued in various places. How do you think people in different parts of the world should try to improve their working conditions? Or is this kind of organizing not necessary?

Throughout Cultural Perspectives, many influential texts have been read, analyzed, and discussed. One text, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis, integrates the thoughts of quite a few authors that have been discussed this semester. Through employing a Marxist view of history—there are always the “haves” and the “have-nots”—one can see that Life in the Iron Mills exemplifies the struggles that face many “have-not” citizens throughout history. One can then see the clear connections to various authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, W.E.B. DuBois, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, and Adam Smith.

When it comes to the topic of working conditions, most of us will readily agree that the scriveners in Herman Melville’s “Bartebly The Scrivener”, women in both “Tyrants of the shop “, and Working Women tell their own stories , were dehumanized , treated unequally and underpaid. Working Conditions, according to “www. definitions.uslegal.com”, is defined as referring to working environments, and all existing circumstances, affecting labor in the workplace. Being the fact I was once in a similar situation, I can defiantly relate to this topic. Despite being underpaid and treated unfairly, I still somehow managed. All in all, there is a common ground or mutual understanding that the Men and Women within this time period of history suffered.

Life in the Iron Mills is a novella that is hard to classify as a specific genre. The genre that fits the most into this novella is realism, because of the separation of classes, the hard work that a person has to put into their every day life to try and make a difference, and the way society influences the actions of people and their relationships. However, no matter what genre is specifically chosen, there will be other genres present that contradict the genre of choice. While the novella shows romanticism, naturalism, and realism, this essay is specifically centered around realism. The ultimate theme in Rebecca Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills is the separation of classes and gender. It is the separation of classes when the people in the