Feminism
Life in the Iron Mills is one of the earliest American Realist stories published.[3] It was Rebecca Harding Davis's first published work, first appearing anonymously in the April 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.[3] After its publication, it caused a literary sensation with its powerful naturalism that anticipated the work of Émile Zola, Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris.[3] It was reprinted in the early 1970s by the Feminist Press with a well-known afterword by Tillie Olsen and has continued to be an important text for those who study labor and women’s issues.[1][2] Anticipating post-Darwinian naturalism, Davis's most famous depiction of the redundant, dehumanizing servitude of American labor in Life in the Iron-Mills (initially an anonymous publication) may be American literature's first industrial muckraker. Its graphic probe into ethnicity, vocation, and class also encompasses, according to Pfaelzer, what became Davis's most characteristic subject and theme: strong women and powerlessness.[13]
"Life in the Iron Mills" reworks Davis's struggles with the problems of thwarted vocation, feminine longing and the alienation of an immigrant (and in an allusion to a textile mill, an interracial) industrial proletariat. Davis's is not only a dual projection of resentments at her own domestic and artistic oppression, but also an ambitious bi-gender proletarian narrative.[15] Nevertheless, the authorial decision to use dual protagonists highlights even more greatly the sexual division of labor, the social relations between working men and workingwomen that is produced, and the very nature of the female work character.[15]
Davis takes pains to initiate her readers into the knowledge of hitherto little acknowledged social realities; she seems a pioneer exploring a territory which, by the end of the nineteenth century, would be recognized as the new American wilderness.[16] Davis's story comes to life not as a work which is admirable because it is almost realistic, but as a work which astonishes and informs its past and present readers because it shares in and extends the accomplishments of the romance.[16]
Immigration and industrialization
The story also "launched a pathbreaking exposé of the effects of capitalism and industrialization, including the physical, spiritual, and intellectual starvation of immigrant wage earners. In fact, the novel is recognized as being the first literary work in America to focus on the relationships among industrial work, poverty, and the exploitation of immigrants within a capitalistic economy".[14] Life in the Iron Mills is an explosive study of the working poor, prophetic of the class struggle that would fill the main chapters of nineteenth century labor history. Davis's story is remarkable for its solidarity with the cause of the workers. Writers who took up the subject of the labor wars more typically enlisted on the side of corporate authority.[17] As Davis shows, the Industrial Revolution also brought with it class distinctions clearly exhibited by the material wealth of capitalists and industrialists who possessed the means to build lavish homes with elaborate architecture. In contrast, factory workers and other unskilled laborers often lived in crowded boardinghouses and small apartments. Because they lived in such deplorable and disorderly conditions, held such lower-class status, and faced the stress and uncertainty of work, many wage earners indulged in alcohol consumption. Davis effectively captures these conflicts in Life in the Iron Mills.[18] As far as the country was concerned, immigrants saw America as a place with many job opportunities due to industrialization and urbanization. In the 1840s the nation received 1.7 million immigrants, and then 2.6 million in the 1850s. Many owners of industrial plants and mills became rich by exploiting the immigrant workers in order to provide cheap goods. Davis was said to have, "sought to make her readers aware that their material comfort was enabled neither by palliative classical gods nor by cheap coal and river barges but by real human beings, who ate, slept, and toiled in unspeakable conditions" (4).[19]
In this short story, Davis is allowing the readers to not only experience the true reality of what work was like during this time, but she is also encouraging the readers to become social activists and take action towards change in the real world. During the beginning times of industrialization, the working conditions were terrible. All of the characters in the story lived in a town that was overtaken by pollution due to the iron mills; therefore, their town had no clean air for the residents to enjoy and the town always seemed “dirty.” Since all of these different characters had to work long hours in terrible conditions, the extreme pollution put into perspective how damaging it actually was to their health. In one scholarly journal about Life in the Iron-Mills, Jill Gatlin explains that, “She [Davis] portrays pollution not as a source of awe or a sign of wealth, nor as simply a nuisance or an annoyance, but rather as a lethal hazard to laborers”.[20] Davis helps put into perspective how deadly the pollution can be when it is inhaled in large quantities all of the time. Life in the Iron-Mills helps bring awareness to all of the waste that is acquired through the pollution and shows that, for some, this is part of their daily lives.[20] Due to industrialization, the manufacturing of goods increasingly grew and, therefore, there were people who were obtaining large quantities of money off of different products that were being produced. These people are known as the upper-class people and they have always looked down upon the working-class people. The working-class has always been perceived as being “dirty” and unhealthy. In the story, the working-class was seen as not being very healthy because they were the people who were always working to survive, while the upper-class people were able to live to work. The upper-class people were never seen wearing “dirty” clothes because they were able to afford a more comfortable lifestyle than the working-class people. This is still true in today’s social class outlook on society. One of the upper-class characters in the story is Mitchell. Mitchell didn’t see the working-class people as humans, let alone equals. He instead saw the working-class people more as objects. According to Wanlin Li, another scholarly journal writer, “The reaction of Mitchell reflects the usual way that upper class travelers or mental travelers reading picturesque travel narratives look at the lower class: they view them as aesthetic objects”.[21] Most upper-class people think they are better than others no matter what, and ultimately, they end up stepping all over the working-class people. Because of this, the upper-class men see the mill workers more as objects than as humans during this beginning time of industrialization. This still happens in today’s society as well. Davis wrote this story because she wanted to see change in the world. She also wanted to create people who would stand up, demand change, and do something about the horrible conditions that mill workers had to endure during the nineteenth century.[21] During the beginning times of industrialization, working conditions were horrible for the working-class, and Davis is able to portray the extreme division of social classes accurately throughout the story.
