
+ american literature, early american literature, life in the iron mills, ralph waldo emerson, rebecca harding davis, transcendentalism
The Canary in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills”
When I taught Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills (1861) this semester, I asked students to think about the opening paragraphs where the narrator describes the scene and implores the reader to come right down with her “into the thickest of the fog and mud and foul effluvia.” The opening images bring to mind Gothic texts as the narrator describes the trash … Read More The Canary in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills”