Journal Rebecca Harding Davis

Christine Sloss
English 48A
Journal for Rebecca Harding Davis
October 6, 2011



Author Quote: I call this night the crisis of his life. If it was, it stole on him unawares. Thee great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship goes to heaven or hell.


Internet Quote: Rebecca Harding Davis broke new ground as an American fiction writer and journalist. Life in the Iron Mills launched Davis's fifty-year career, during which she wrote some five hundred published works. And, She was one of the first writers to portray the Civil War nonpolemically, to expose political corruption in the North, and to unmask bias in legal constraints on women.


Brief Summary: It seems that Davis is trying to bring awareness to a class of people who have little help or guidance to find their way to a better life. She sets up the introduction to the characters, to help you realize the desperate state these people are living in. Also, that they mean well and have a good heart. However, in this particular moment in time they are caught in a situation that gets them put in jail and winds up ending the life of Hugh.  Sadly just shortly before his death, Hugh is recognized for creativity and craftsmanship, unfortunately Hugh has conflicting thought of this new recognition and doesn’t know what to do. Therefore, because he has no one to help or guide him, he ends up taking the wrong path and paying the ultimate price.

My thoughts: I appreciate Davis’s detailed description, it makes it easier to understand the limitations of the of the people of that time. However, even in these desperate times it seems that the authors own limitation of dreaming and hoping are limited. (Call me an optimist). But I feel that Hugh was an honest man, with dreams of something better. How it can all change because of stolen wallet is a difficult believe. He had worked at the mill for a lifetime (it seemed) and that is honest work. In his own time he would carve images from his imagination, and this too is honest. And when the visiting doctor tells Hugh that he can make his own way in life, a better way, Hugh knows in his heart that this was his destiny. What I would expect is that upon finding out about the stolen wallet he would have some how returned it.