Early American life was based in an industrious, mostly agrarian society where the cultural myth that the new United States of America was the place to go for opportunity was already firmly established. Although iron works were already at work by the 1700s, the first cotton mills in the U.S. did not come into being until after 1789, when Samuel Slater reached the U.S. with the plan for a water frame memorized (Tichi 17-19). By 1845, however, as the economies in places such as Ireland and Germany became depressed through political and social unrest, immigrants began coming to the U.S. to seek the opportunity that it was already famous for (Dinnerstein 12). Between 1845, when the labor organization the Industrial Congress of the United States was established (Tichi 28), and 1854, three million immigrants landed on the east coast to help supply the iron and cotton mills with cheap labor (Dinnerstein 12). By 1857, the U.S. was suffering from widespread economic panic, and by 1858, it was seeking solace in a religious revival (Tichi 30). This began the ascent, for the U.S. into the Industrial Revolution.
By 1861, Rebecca Harding Davis had published her novella, "Life in the Iron Mills", preceding the realist movement in the U.S. by ten years. In "Life in the Iron Mills", Davis strives to realistically portray the horrific life of a factory worker, and so better educate the middle and upper classes as to the true state of the union (Tichi 14-15). This paper will explore how in the story, "Life in the Iron Mills", Davis was influenced by her time as she offers spiritual awakening as the only real way out of this misery, how this fits into the historical context, compare this to modern research, and conclude with how these two views now compare.
"Life in the Iron Mills" opens with the words, "Is this the end?" and proceeds to describe the cloudy, gray, smoke-filled atmosphere that is norm for a "town of iron-works" (Davis in Tic...