Life in the Iron Mills is Rebecca Harding Davis' book about the tragedy of the working class in America. It is one of the first novels to be recognized as realist. Davis writes about a woman named Deborah who works at a mill in Virginia and runs a boarding house for some of the workers. Falling for a loner, artist type who also works at the mill, she is continually frustrated by his obliviousness. After stealing a rich man's wallet, Deborah confesses and gives it up to Hugo. In turn, he keeps the wallet, but is found out. Both end up in prison where Hugo eventually commits suicide.
Davis holds nothing back in portraying the bleak fate of these working class people. First, they live in a company-owned mill town, meaning there is next to no opportunity for upward mobility or departure because the mill owns everything, even people's homes. Additionally, the working class lives in dramatically less fortunate circumstances compared to the owners, who observe this disparity without concern. The owners profit from more cheap labor, often taking short cuts in safety and quality.
Switching between narrative perspectives, Davis offers readers a glimpse into the way gender and class effects the character's life outlooks. For Deborah, her desire to find a husband consumes her every spare thought. She lusts after Hugo, but she remains realistic and cynical enough to doubt ever receiving reciprocation of her affections. In Hugo's perspective, the world is stacked against him. He's desperate to leave the town, but he's not able to, so he takes the wallet as an act of defiance. When he's imprisoned, Hugo loses all hope and falls into an overwhelming depression and kills himself. To Dr. May, these incidents -- the theft and imprisonment -- are ordinary. He casually observes how the working class have become more desperate than normal, but these observations appear to serve as dismissal rather than obligation for him.
