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…

In Life in the Iron Mills, Rebecca Harding Davis tells the story of Hugh Wolfe, a lower-class man whose love of beauty and desire to move up in the world ultimately leads to his mental decline and demise. Wolfe lives in a town of smothering grey smog and works in an iron mill reminiscent of Hell, places that induce hopelessness and despair by appearance. In contrast to his surroundings, Wolfe possesses a fierce love of beauty and a talent of sculpting with korl, both of which are frequently associated…

was born. Warren Gamaliel Harding was the eldest of George and Phoebe Harding 's eight children. In July of 1891, Harding got married to Florence Kling. They were married for the remainder of his life. Kling, whom had married once before, had a child from her previous marriage, but her and Warren did not have any children together. Warren G. Harding was the president from 1921 to 1923 representing the Republican Party. When inaugurated, he was fifty-five years old. Harding did not get to finish out…

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…

In "Life in the Iron Mills" Rebecca Harding Davis reveals a growing industrial America in the nineteenth century, where an unbelievable level of poverty and limited opportunities of achieving success can cause individuals to take extreme risks to attain a descent lifestyle. Through the novella, Davis illustrates the distinct differences between upper and lower class lifestyles. Immigrant workers, Debora (lovingly called Deb) and Hugh, take the reader to a time when people were used as production…

The industrial revolution was a time of invention, progress and opportunity. However, there was also a darker side to it all. Rebecca Harding Davis, author of Life in the Iron Mills, tells the story of ironworker Hugh Wolfe from a first-person narrator’s point of view. This unnamed narrator of an unspecified gender is part of the more privileged class of society. This person resides in the house that the two protagonists of the story, Hugh and Debora Wolfe, used to live in. The higher-ups of this…

the reader, social injustice may be dealt with. Two examples that use form to reach the end goal of compassion are Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills uses an embedded narrative to tell the story of Deb and Hugh, and the daily struggles of Deb’s life. Life in the Iron Mills was written in 1861, two years prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. The goal of this story is to feel compassion…

Suicide in Bartleby and Life in the Iron Mills Life in the Iron Mills and Bartleby are centered on characters who are alienated laborers, looking for means through which they cannot be deprived of their humanity. Hugh Wolfe and Bartleby are both workers who have been victimized by the capitalistic system. As Karl Marx explains, the capitalistic system exploits the laborer and thus robs the laborer of his humanity through alienating the laborer. Both Wolfe and Bartleby become victims…

quite simple. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells. These cells never die and multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot essentially captured the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. With controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey. From the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white…

the need to speak out for others, especially the lower classes. However, Rebecca Harding Davis observed the suffering of all humanity and decided to give everyone a voice through her writings. Throughout her career, Davis wrote an innumerable amount of works advocating for equal rights among all people, right up until her death in 1910. The following paper will analyze and discuss the reception and influence that Rebecca Harding Davis’s works of literary realism had on the hierarchy of society, in relation…