In the late 1800s Life in the Iron Mills received national criticism when published in The Atlantic Monthly. Many readers of the Monthly believed that the author of the story was a man because of Davis's strong language and use of realism. Davis also published her early works anonymously, but as she gained fame from The Atlantic Monthly she began to sign her name to her work.[22] Life in the Iron Mills took readers away from abolitionist and Civil War conflicts, and reminded them of the community of iron workers going through injustice as well.[23] Davis also had strong literary supporters such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many others.[24]
Rebecca Harding Davis disappeared from the literary world after ending her publications in The Atlantic Monthly. Life in the Iron Mills regained critical reception with the help of Tillie Olsen. In the 1970s many feminist supporters wrote about the power of Rebecca Harding Davis's short story. Norma Rosen, the author of "Joy to Revine" explains her first experience when reading Life in the Iron Mills: "With this book, Life in the Iron Mills in my hand, I feel I am standing in corridor of echoes".[25] Another critic, Federick Whittacker, describes Rebecca Harding Davis as a writer who takes part in the concept "Knight of labor", which too Whittacker represents writers who create literary fiction concerning the iron mill labor force in the 1800s. Life in the Iron Mills, was considered by most critics during the 1970s and 1980s, as one of the first works representing the iron mill labor force through realism.[23]
Life in the Iron mills still inspires literary criticism. Davis's short story has its own Bedford Cultural Edition, which introduces Life in the Iron Mills literary importance during the 19th century. The Bedford edition also explores the relation of Davis to the short story, and how her background influences the narrative.[26] Many critics explore the different themes that can be interpreted in the short story and its relation to the authors environment and historical context. Sheila Hassle Hughes exemplifies the conflicts that arise among critics about the themes Life in the Iron Mills represents:[27]
Scholars have generally found it difficult to reconcile Davis's radical form with the religious, specifically Christian, features of her tale. Two critics who have attempted to address this tension come to quite different conclusions. Sharon Harris reads the work as a critique of "passive Christianity", but her study of irony fails to address adequately the remaining constructive or stubbornly spiritual elements of Life in the Iron Mills. William H. Shurr, on the other hand, reads the story as a conversion narrative. While his approach highlights more of the ambiguities in Davis's religious rhetoric, it depends upon a dichotomy between the political and the spiritual which does not do full justice to Davis's text either. Harris's reading emphasizes the text's religious elements as an aspect of form that the political content ironically undoes, whereas Shurr tends to undermine the social aspects of the tale through his religious form criticism.
— Sheila Hassell Hughes, A Liberationist Reading of Class and Gender in Life in the Iron Mills
