Davis 7/17/09

I found Rebecca Harding Davis's "Life in the Iron-Mills" to be just as powerful as the works we've read by Douglass, Stowe, and Jacobs. Davis's critique of the harsh life of iron-mill workers raises similarities to the anti-slavery writings when Davis writes about hopeless lives of starvation, little money, as well as pure monotony. Davis brings out the horrors of living a working class life during the Industrial Revolution when workers were often abused by their overseers, just as slaves were abused by their slave owners, granted the workers were never whipped or hung. These workers suffered from harsh conditions with little pay and long hours, unable to see their families most of the days and most likely having to encounter major health problems later on in life. "If you could go into this mill where Deborah lay, and drag out from the hearts of these men the terrible tragedy of their lives, taking it as a symptom of the disease of their class, no ghost Horror would terrify you more." Davis refers to these men's social class as a horror, asking the reader, no matter what social class you may constitute, would you want to live in those conditions? Davis raises the question of why is the working class so oppressed at the hands of the wealthy? What makes a social class? What makes these people better or worse than others? Why does money decide this in so many cases? Why must one live such a horrible, seemingly meaningless life just because he or she doesn't have as much money? Davis raises questions in "Life in the Iron-Mills" regarding class and work oprression just as Douglass, Jacobs, etc. raised questions regarding the institution of slavery. That's why I think this writing was just as powerful.