Agnes Smedley's Daughter of Earth tells the semi-autobiographical tale of Marie Rogers, a young girl born into a poor family in Missouri. Witnessing all the struggles and injustices of her family, Marie determines to leave by any means possible. She makes her way in the world, teaching schoolkids in New Mexico, working as a travelling saleswoman, and various other temporary jobs throughout the country. While Marie has no fond memories of her childhood, she continually sacrifices of her own income and dreams to support her struggling father and younger siblings. She encounters a great deal of oppression as a single working woman. After a failed marriage, she moves to New York and becomes active in the Socialist Party. She gets mixed up with some legal trouble and is raped by a man trying to blackmail her into releasing some confidential documents pertaining to the Indian Independence Movement. The novel ends with Marie's second husband leaving her after her blackmailer contacts him and explains that he's already raped Marie.
Smedley, it seems, did not set out to write a cheery novel about American industry. She focuses on the cause of the working class and the various injustices which they must overcome just to survive. The obvious focus of this book is oppression of the proletariat. Smedley follows the causes of women, immigrants, menial laborers, prostitutes, etc. Each of these people are give names, stories, and desires -- humanized. Among novels of the 1920s, Daughter of Earth is unique for its radical perspective upon the unequal distribution of wealth in American due to Capitalism. Smedley's strong socialist allegiance shines through in the book, although ultimately Marie's own Socialist ties are what spell her final failure.
Smedley chooses to portray Marie, her presumed fictional representative, as a woman intent on avenging the wrongs of her childhood. Marie was born into an abusive family with next to no money. In fact, after she leaves, her younger siblings are hired out to nearby farms to work for pitiful wages which are garnered by their father. Even though Marie is able to escape that life, she still finds herself subject to a different sort of oppression -- sexism. She is raped several times, proposed to by every second man she meets, denied equal pay at her work, and denied most rights in her marriages. Despite these obstacles, Marie is not a victim. She tackles each challenge in turn and manages to retain both her dignity and her sense of personal responsibility. She personally devotes her life to helping other oppressed people's find justice.
