Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day Historical Context

Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day Historical Context

Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day is set in an Indiana textile mill, but the town Davis describes is her own home town of Wheeling, Virginia—later to become Wheeling, West Virginia, as a result of the Civil War.

Civil War

At the time Davis wrote her book, the Civil War had already started, but the book is set in the months just before it begins. In the decades before the war, the North and South had become increasingly different from each other in terms of politics, economy, and society. The North was more heavily industrialized and commercial, employing great numbers of immigrants, whereas the South was still an agricultural society, based on slave labor. Although tensions between North and South arose largely because of their different economic and political situations, the institution of slavery became a focal point of the war.

The war began in April of 1861, when...
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