Rebecca Harding Davis's Life In The Iron Mills

The Pullman Palace Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars cut the already low wages of its workers by about 25 percent, but didn’t introduce corresponding reductions in rents and other charges at Pullman's company town near Chicago, where most Pullman workers lived. In result of this many worked and their families faced starvation. A large section of workers tried to present their problems about low wages, poor living conditions, and

John Steinbeck’s short novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ presents the desolate nature of 1930s America, in particular Soledad, close to where Steinbeck himself grew up and worked during this time. Notably, Steinbeck focuses on the life of migrant workers who were forced to travel from ranch to ranch in search of work as a result of the simultaneous occurring disasters ‘The Great Depression’ and ‘The Dustbowl’. Due to the economic crisis, the percentage of unemployment rose and money became increasingly tight so violence became a cheap form of entertainment for the men of America, the mentality becoming very much ‘every man for himself’ which created a hostile environment,

Paul E. Johnson’s 2004 book Sam Patch: The Famous Jumper uses a mill worker’s personal background to relay a series of socio-economic changes that occurred during the 1800’s. The Industrial Revolution, for many, was the beginning of something new. Due to the development and proliferation of technology, the economic gain from the Industrial Revolution was formidable. Unfortunately, the working class was forced to endure hazardous working conditions. For Sam Patch— a nineteenth century daredevil exhibitionist with nothing to his name— leaping from tall cliffs was a form of visual oppression designed to challenge the authority of well-respected political leaders of the upper class. The ideology that a simple man rose to fame by performing acts that, by many, was considered foolish, contradicted the beliefs of the upper class. This publication highlights several broad changes that occurred during this time period. Society’s perception of fame changed dramatically. Sam Patch went from being a simple mill worker to being a celebrity overnight. This work also highlights issues regarding domestic textile industries, including poor working conditions and child labor. Sam Patch began working at the age of seven; that was not entirely uncommon during this time period. Children were subjected to dust-filled rooms that were either “hot in the summer or cold in the winter.” Furthermore, this book also emphathizes the growing hostility between the Whig Party and the Jacksonian Party.

The industrial revolution introduced many new technology and improved our economic system. There have been a large increase in manufacture and machine tools since then. This led to better transportation, steam powered factories, consumer goods, a large workforce, and labour conditions. During the 1870’s , many financial issues had arise in the United States of America and in many European countries. Due to the financial crises that arise , it led to a major depressing era in history that is called the Panic of 1873. In “Standing at Armageddon” written by Nell Irvin Painter, the author discusses the progressive era and the United States economic crisis , as well as, social status during the ninetheeth century. Painter explains on how the high class white people owned most of the United States industry and due to their wealth, they owned fifty-one percent of the properties in America. They were the wealthiest one percent of the United States. There were different layers of wealth and social status which also integrates with race and ethnicity. Those who were wealthy in America weren’t the ones working hard and getting their hands dirty. Many low class were immigrants, women and blacks who worked in factories and were receiving low wages and poor work conditions. The low class owned only 1.2 percent of the properties in America. This caused major issues in the united states because the workers formed

Rebecca Harding Davis was a groundbreaking author whose work, Life in the Iron Mills, examined a socioeconomic system that failed some while keeping others empowered. The issues of power and social class that are embedded in the work prompts readers to look closer at the unskilled immigrant laborers, whose living and working conditions were deplorable, and compare them to the capitalists and wealthy mill owners whose financial success rested mainly on the workers who were being marginalized. The narrator’s call to the readers, “Stop a moment…hide your disgust, take no heed to your clean clothes, and come right down with me,” is actualized through the eyes of the middle and upper class gentlemen who visit the mill on what the narrator refers to as “the crisis of [Hugh’s] life” (Davis). Though the narrator’s voice eases the

Events that unfold in a person’s life occur because of uncontrollable circumstances around them as well as their actions. This balance of power of these two forces is never the same with different people. Thus, people fall into two general categories, those at the mercy of the uncontrollable and those who exert more control over their lives than outside forces do. Francis Aloysius Phelan in William Kennedy’s novel, “Ironweed,” falls into this second category. Francis is a former professional baseball player in his younger days who now finds himself, at fifty-eight, living as a bum in Albany, New York in 1938 during the Great Depression. Francis’ life is one filled with death, destruction and general unhappiness worse than the average person living during the same time of economic turmoil. Francis’ situation in his life is one he has little control over in some areas but controls most of. Francis Phelan’s decision making is at fault for his misfortunes.

A second reporter from the New York Journal interviews an officer of a mining camp that says, “If you were to go from one to another and inquire into their condition at noon, I give you my word that fully half of them will tell you that they do not know where their supper is to come from.” Miners all over the country are being forced into poverty by the mining companies that they are making money for. Also what little a miner is making in paid income is subjected to outrageous charges that may range anywhere from housing, store credit, and medical fees. Most of the time all three of this pay cutting fees are applied and are taken out leaving a dirty coal covered miner with no money what so ever and starving family in a dank cold hovel and dirty blackened water unsafe to drink. It’s regrettable to think that in the end of all this, it would appear to be that the coal companies themselves make more money of the miners than they do of the coal they have them dig out of the ground. The miners and their families in Storming Heaven are just like this in real life since they are facing the same set of obstacles. Giardina’s novel moves us into the time of the early 1900’s and tells of how they “…freeze and starve” Storming Heaven, when the try and fight back. “Nine or ten people died each week” Storming Heaven, and die when they are left with nothing. All throughout the book it only worsens for them as time passes onwards. “What they needed was food and warmth, and I could give them neither. Nor could the miners give these things to their families”. Poverty is not something that should be taken lightly and Giardina openly places the reader into a first-hand experience of what it means to be truly impoverished and out of options. All of those frontier men and substance farms that ounce lived as the chose now must follow in line

Among the multitudes of upper class women in the nineteenth century, struggling with their own problems, few felt 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 to class, from the nineteenth century to the present. Furthermore, Davis’s own personal experiences will also be discussed

“One day there was a blowout so explosive that it sucked four workmen out of the tunnel and blew them through twenty feet of river silt and shot them up threw the river itself forty feet into the air on the crest of a geyser. Only one of the men survived. (13.1)” America had embedded industrialization so deeply at the core of the 1900’s that even though men, women, and children were all dying from the deplorable conditions and experiences it was considered a time of excellence. However this excellence came not only off the back of immigrants, but from a systematic oppression of thousands, including black Americans. Sarah and Coalhouse both suffer the injustices from white men and the mistreatment of those considered to be “less than”. Injustice is a main theme of this book, and nearly every character dies as a cause of it, “A militiaman stepped forward and, with the deadly officiousness of armed men who protect the famous, brought the butt of of his Springfield against Sarah's chest as hard as he

Davis’s “Life in the Iron Mills” similarly paints a disturbing picture of capitalism’s detrimental effects upon the human condition. Like Bartleby, Hugh Wolfe is separated from nature’s beauties and consequently suffers under capitalism’s weight. He and his cousin Deb are “filthy” Welsh immigrants who live as many others who have become capitalist tools (Davis 1708). Their lives consist of “incessant labor,” and they sleep in “kennel-like rooms,” forced to survive on “rank pork and molasses” (Davis 1708). Hugh’s low station in a capitalist society is further illustrated through his drained and unhealthy appearance. The narrator points out that Hugh has “already lost the strength and instinct vigor of a man,” his muscles and nerves are weak,

Rebecca Hardy Davis’ Realistic Approach to Society in “Life in the Iron Mills” Initially published in 1861, Rebecca Hardy Davis’s “Life in the Iron Mills” was printed in a time when the United States was at war. Although the story itself does not speak about war, the story does depict the reality of life in mid-nineteenth century America. It speaks about the moral and social costs that industrialization has wrought to the divided nation. Concisely, it evokes realism and it is one of the literary movement’s greatest pieces.

The novella was set in the present, in the Salinas Valley of California during the Great Depression, and it ennobled or sentimentalized its characters, migrant farm workers. The underlying intent -- adopted by Mr. Floyd in a way that had begun to look pretty old-fashioned by 1970, when his opera was first performed -- was to honor the working man by elevating him to highbrow tragic stature, whether in literature, theater (in Steinbeck's stage adaptation) or, ultimately, opera.” (Rockwell,

In the story “Life of the iron mills”, the narrator portrays the lives of immigrant industrial workers, in which they were exploited to the maxim. Also, the narrator states “The hands of each mill are divided into watches that relieve each other as regularly as the sentinels of an army. By night and day the work goes on, the unsleeping engines groan and shriek, the fiery pools of metal boil,” it describes the inhuman conditions that the workers experienced day and night, and how they were treated like machines. On the other hand, the narrator reveals the hypocrisy of the rich by offering opportunities to the poor, but as Kirby said: “I have heard you call our American system a ladder which any man can scale. Do you doubt it? Or perhaps you

Horace Derwent immigrated to the United States of America at the ripe age of six with his family of four with the dream of becoming American success stories. Their dreams were quickly struck down by the grim nature of reality. Immigrant life in the land of opportunity landed the Derwent family in a crowded tenement within an Irish borough of New York City. Horace’s parents spent the majority of their time working in factories in wake of the industrial revolution, and the Derwent children quickly followed suit due to the scarcity of money. The subpar condition of their workplace

It is important to note, all of the misfortune that were recounted in the former were not at the hand of Moll herself but instead at her mother’s, yet her status in society was lower because of them. In fact, Moll’s lot in life had been damaged long before she could even develop a moral standing. In a lucky twist of fate, Moll found herself in the care of a local parsonage where she was placed in the care of a woman who taught her how to make a living for herself as a seamstress. Individuals living in the middle class during the eighteenth century often had outside pressures placed upon them that kept their social mobility stagnant; these outside pressures, coupled with societal stereotyping, often lead to great resentment towards their oppressors. For society to say that Moll was placed in the middle or lower class because of her inferior virtue is unfounded, and this theme is reflected in Defoe’s writing about Moll’s early beginnings.