(Image source: Legacy Photo Gallery)

| Top | Primary Works

Books: Margret Howth. 1861; Waiting for the Verdict. 1867; Dallas Galbraith. 1868; Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories. 1872; Kitty's Choice or Berrytown and Other Stories. 1873; John Andross. 1874; A Law unto Herself. 1878; Natasqua. 1886; Kent Hampden. 1892; Silhouettes of American Life. 1892; Doctor Warrick's Daughters. 1896; Frances Waldeaux. 1897; Bits of Gossip. 1904.

Short Fiction: "Life in the Iron-Mills," Atlantic Monthly, 1861; "David Gaunt." 1862; "John Lamar." 1862; "Paul Blecker." 1863; "Ellen." 1865; "The Harmonists." 1866; "In the Market." 1868; "A Pearl of Great Price." 1868; "Put out of the Way." 1870; "Earthen Pitchers." 1873-74; "Marcia." 1876; "A Day with Doctor Sarah." 1878; "Here and There in the South." 1887.

Essays: "Men's Rights." 1869; "Some Testimony in the Case." 1885; "Women in Literature." 1891; "In the Gray Cabins of New England." 1895; "The Disease of Money-Getting." 1902.

| Top | Selected Bibliography

Boudreau, Kristin. "The Woman's Flesh of Me': Rebecca Harding Davis's Response to Self-Reliance." American Transcendental Quarterly. 6:2 (June 1992): 132-40.

Buckley, J. F. "Living in the Iron Mills: A Tempering of Nineteenth Century America's Orphic Poet." Journal of American Culture 16.1 (Sprg 1993 Spring): 67-72.

Curnutt, Kirk. "Direct Addresses, Narrative Authority, and Gender in Rebecca Harding Davis's 'Life in the Iron Mills'." Style 28.2 (Sum 1994): 146-68.

Goodman, Charlotte. "Portraits of the Artiste manque by Three Women Novelists." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 5:3 (Fall 1980): 57-59.

Harris, Sharon. "Rebecca Harding Davis: From Romanticism to Realism." American Literary Realism 21:2 (Winter 1989): 4-20.

- - -. "Rebecca Harding Davis: A Continuing Misattribution." Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 5:1 (Spring 1988): 33-34.

Harris, Sharon M. Rebecca Harding Davis and American Realism. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991.

Hood, Richard A. "Framing a 'Life in the Iron Mills'." Studies in American Fiction 23.1 (Sprg 1995): 73-84.

Langford, Gerald. The Richard Harding Davis years; a biography of a mother and son. NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1961. PS1523 .L3

Lasseter, Janice Milner. "'Boston in the Sixties': Rebecca Harding Davis's View of Boston and Concord during the Civil War." The Concord-Saunterer 3 (Fall 1995): 64-86.

Malpezzi, Frances M. "Sisters in Protest: Rebecca Harding Davis and Tillie Olsen" Artes Liberales 12:2 (Spring 1986): 1-9.

Morrison, Lucy. "The Search for the Artist in Man and Fulfillment in Life: Rebecca Harding Davis's 'Life in the Iron Mills.'" Studies in short fiction 33.2 (Sprg 1996): 245-55.

Pfaelzer, Jean. Parlor Radical: Rebecca Harding Davis and the Origins of American Social Realism. Pittsburgh : U of Pittsburgh P, 1996.

---. "Subjectivity as Feminist Utopia." in Donawerth Jane L. ed. Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference. Syracuse : Syracuse UP, 1994.

Rose, Jane A. "Images of Self: The Example of Rebecca Harding Davis and Charlotte Perkins Gilman." English Language Notes 29.4 (Jun 1992): 70 78.

- - -. Rebecca Harding Davis. NY: Twayne, 1993. PS1517 .Z5 R67

Scheiber, Andrew J. "An Unknown Infrastructure: Gender, Production, and Aesthetic Exchange in Rebecca Harding Davis's 'Life in the Iron Mills'." Legacy 11.2 (1994): 101-17.

Shurr, William. "Life in the Iron Mills: A Nineteenth Century Conversion Narrative." American Transcendental Quarterly 5:4 (December 1991): 245-57.

Thomson, Rosemarie. "Benevolent Maternalism and Physically Disabled Figures: Dilemmas of Female Embodiment in Stowe, Davis, and Phelps." American Literature 68.3 (Sep 1996): 555-61.

Yellin, Jean-Fagan. "The Feminization of Rebecca Harding Davis." American Literary History 2:2 (Summer 1990): 203-19.

Study Questions

1. What is the purpose of the rhetorical questions posed by the author/narrator at various points in the story "Life in the Iron-Mills," ? Do they refer simply to the prospect of salvation for a man convicted of stealing, or do they imply the naturalistic view that Hugh's theft is excused by his unfortunate environment and heredity? Some students may recognize what is probably religious rhetoric in the questions: perhaps the teacher can simply encourage students to seek additional possibilities.

2. Write a paper discussing the story as a transitional work between Romanticism and Realism, using traits outlined in the Introductions to Chapters 5 and 6 of PAL.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 5: Late Nineteenth Century - Rebecca Harding Davis." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/davis.html (provide page date or date of your login).  

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