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Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories

Rebecca Harding Davis,

Tillie Olsen (Editor)

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Dec 19, 2012 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, short-stories, about-literature

"Life in the Iron Mills" (1861) was one of the first major Realist works in American literature and created an immediate sensation in the literary world when it was first published, though it was subsequently forgotten and only re-discovered in relatively recent times by editor Olsen. I'd read, and really liked, it already back in the 90s, when we were home-schooling our girls and I was preparing to teach American literature (I made it required reading!). Since the additional material in this vo "Life in the Iron Mills" (1861) was one of the first major Realist works in American literature and created an immediate sensation in the literary world when it was first published, though it was subsequently forgotten and only re-discovered in relatively recent times by editor Olsen. I'd read, and really liked, it already back in the 90s, when we were home-schooling our girls and I was preparing to teach American literature (I made it required reading!). Since the additional material in this volume consists only of two more stories by Davis, one much shorter, and Olsen's "Biographical Interpretation," I selected it to read this month mainly because I could finish it by January (when I'll be starting a common read in one of my groups). I didn't expect it to be a five-star read, but it earned every one of them.

We should note at the outset that this book doesn't purport to be a collection of "the best of" Davis' voluminous short fiction, let alone anything like a comprehensive or representative collection (though Olsen or someone else hopefully will someday produce one!) Rather, it's a thematic one, linking three very different stories that nevertheless have a common underlying element: a protagonist who has artistic (in the broad sense --sculpture in one case, music in the other two-- talent and temperament, but whose situation doesn't afford any opportunity for it to be developed. Olsen makes a very convincing case that Davis could identify personally with this aspect of her protagonist's experience, and that this was an important part of the author's consciousness (see below).

In the title story, set in her native Wheeling, WV (then part of Virginia) the crippling situation protagonist Hugh Wolfe faces is that of poverty: wage slavery, working in an exhausting and dangerous job 12 hours a day, six days a week, for subsistence wages, with no chance for leisure or education. This is the first work of American literature that focuses on the laborers in this situation, and the first social criticism of the treatment the Industrial Revolution was meting out to them. It's gritty, powerful, and tragic, and deeply informed by the author's Christian faith; the sympathetically-treated faith of the Quakers plays a key role, with a trajectory of despair and ruin contending with one of hope and Christian redemption. And the language and imagery of the ending strongly evokes the eschatology of the Christian faith, with a rare appreciation of its socio-economic significance. Davis' achievement in bringing all this to life in what we now recognize as Realist style is remarkable, given her background and resources: she had no formal education beyond "female seminary" (essentially a boarding high school for girls, with a fairly limited curriculum), her reading didn't include Realist models --she adopted that mode of expression naturally, without outside influence and against the Romantic current of all the literature she knew-- and with her genteel class position, the direct observation of working-class life that forms the matrix of the story took a lot of focused effort.

In the other stories here, we have female protagonists whose family responsibilities tie them down to a degree that precludes fulfilling their aspirations for a singing career, or for a life lived in a milieu of aesthetic and intellectual stimulation. But these are not simply stereotypical feminist tracts (because Davis herself wasn't a stereotypical feminist). They recognize the profound truth that loving family ties are what life is all about, and that we get deep emotional satisfaction in return for what we give to spouses and kids who need us, and whom at one level we need. Like many worthwhile things, this can require tradeoffs and sacrifices --but real sacrifices, as opposed to mock ones, involve some pain, some giving up something that has real worth to us, and Davis also recognizes that truth (at the same time that she sees that the grass on the other side of the fence isn't always as green as we paint it in imagination). She recognized all of this from the personal experience of a woman who sacrificed a lot, in terms of time for writing and artistic development, to the needs and wants of her husband and three kids (the youngest born when Davis was 41). That gives these stories a realism, an appreciation of shades of grey, that lifts them above white-and-black tracts (feminist or traditionalist) posing as fiction. And even though I'm a male, I can relate, because like Davis I pursue my writing in the bits and pieces of time I can grab in the midst of family responsibilities (including, in my case, a day job to support the family!) and family fellowship. (The alternatives don't have to be confined to just two, all of one and none of the other!)

At 89 pages, plus 17 pages of notes, Olsen's bio-critical material isn't a full-length biography (that remains to be written!), but it's substantial and fascinating, and added a good deal to my knowledge of this author. (It was written with access to Davis' own diary, and letters.) My only real criticisms would be that the placement of this section between the title story and the other two is awkward, especially since it includes spoilers for both the other stories (it would work better placed at the end, so it would be more apt to be read in that order, as I did in fact read it), and that as a Marxist scholar, Olsen isn't really able to sympathize with Davis' faith.

While Olsen considers the title story to be Davis' only really great work, and finds her subsequent productions mostly flawed, she makes a convincing case that at least some of them have enduring worth. Personally, I'd say that "The Wife's Story" and "Anne," which appear here, and "Balacchi Brothers" (which I've read elsewhere) are on a par with the short fiction of Jewett, Freeman and Garland. This book has whetted my interest in reading more by this author, and I hope eventually to do so! ...more

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