Life in the Iron Mills: Novel Guide

This helpful website provides an interesting biography of Rebecca Harding Davis, a historical and literary overview, and an in depth synopsis of Life in the Iron Mills.

Life in the Iron Mills: Novel Guide

Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Published anonymously in the well-respected Atlantic Monthly under the editorship of James T. Fields in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, Life in the Iron Mills, by Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910), ushered in American literary realism and at the same time 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. It also contains elements of naturalism likened to that of later works by the French writer Émile Zola and the American writer Frank Norris.