Rebecca Harding Davis broke new ground as an American fiction writer and journalist. When her novella Life in the Iron Mills appeared in the April 1861 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, it startled readers with its depiction of the grim lives of the worki...

Rebecca Harding Davis, who came to maturity during the Civil War, wrote about the effects of that war on those who awaited its outcome at home. An astute and imaginative observer, she is noted for her skill in developing character and motivation, but she...