Rebecca Harding Davis

Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis was an American writer and journalist. She pioneered literary realism in American writing. She graduated as valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary in Pennsylvania. Her most significant literary achievement is the short narrative "Life in the Iron-Mills," which appeared in the April 1861 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. Throughout her life, Davis worked to promote social change for African Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working class...See more

Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis was an American writer and journalist. She pioneered literary realism in American writing. She graduated as valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary in Pennsylvania. Her most significant literary achievement is the short narrative "Life in the Iron-Mills," which appeared in the April 1861 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. Throughout her life, Davis worked to promote social change for African Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working class by writing about their plights in the nineteenth century. Richard and Rachel Leet Wilson Harding gave birth to Rebecca Blaine Harding on June 24, 1831, at the David Bradford House in Washington, Pennsylvania. Rebecca was the oldest of five children. After a disastrous entrepreneurial stint in Big Spring, Alabama, the family settled in Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1836. Wheeling was growing into a productive factory town at the time, with iron and steel factories dominating the landscape. Davis's hometown did not yet have public schooling when she was younger. Her mother provided the most of her education, with occasional tutoring assistance. Rebecca's love in reading began while she was home-schooled and read authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, sisters Anna and Susan Warner, and Maria Cummins. See less