Rebecca Harding Davis: Spatial, Gender, and Labor Roles in Literary Realism

Abstract

Rebecca Harding Davis, a West Virginia writer, explores how conceptions of gender shifted in the United States, especially during the Industrial Revolution. Davis published her novel in six separate issues of The Atlantic literary magazine from October of 1861 until March of 1862 in monthly installments. These pieces were eventually published as a novel entitled Margret Howth in 1862. This story explores the life of the young woman after whom the book is named. Davis’s approach emphasizes the recording of daily life as it is happening, commenting especially on the relationship between women and labor during the early Civil War period in the United States. Davis’s focus on the daily details of life allows her to bring attention to gender and labor inequalities in the nineteenth century Midwest. Davis’s female characters depict how women felt unable to make decisions, especially if their decisions brought them out of their home and away from the family. She also brings light to women’s treatment from both men and the upper class, who marked them as unable to do work outside the home because they believed they were physically and emotionally built only for domestic life. [Introduction]