Rebecca Harding Davis: Making Things Real
Rebecca Harding Davis, ca 1865
One of the joys of writing this blog is that when things are going well one post leads to another idea, another story, another question. It feels like my list of possible topics bubbles and fizzes* and I can hardly decide which story to tell you next.** This is one of the times when the ideas are flowing.
Which brings me to Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) , with a hat tip to Helena Luna who (very politely) pointed out on Bluesky that I had barely scratched the surface of Davis’s story when I mentioned her in my post on her son ,Richard Harding Davis. I scuttled off to find out more.
Rebecca Harding grew up in Wheeling, Virginia,*** which was then a booming factory town, with an economy based on iron and steel mills. Originally home-schooled by her parents, she went away to boarding school at fourteen. After graduating at the top of her class, she returned home to Wheeling, where she joined the staff of the local newspaper.
Back home, she began to write stories and publish them anonymously. (Not an unusual choice for women writers at the time.) She became famous in literary circles with the publication of her novella, Life in the Iron Mills, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1861.**** The novella impressed contemporary readers with its detailed and dark depictions of the conditions under which mine workers and their families existed. A few months later, The Atlantic Monthly began publishing Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day, her novel about a young woman working in the mills to support her family, as a serial. (It was later published in book form.) At much the same time, she also began publishing in Peterson’s Magazine, a women’s magazine that was less prestigious than The Atlantic, but paid its authors more. (Don’t get me started.)
In June, 1862, Rebecca traveled to Boston to meet the editor of The Atlantic Monthly. While there she met several prominent New England authors, both those who had praised her work as a brave new voice and those whose work she had long admired. (I picture mutual fan-girl squealing when she met Louisa May Alcott.) From there she went on to Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia. In Philadelphia she met journalist Lemuel Clarke Davis, who had sent her a fan letter praising Life in the Iron-Mills. They had corresponded during the months that followed. A week after they met In Real Life, they became engaged. (Do not underestimate the power of correspondence as courtship.) They married a year later and settled in Philadelphia.
For several years, while Lemuel established himself in his career, Rebecca was the primary breadwinner of the family. In addition to writing for Peterson’s Magazine, she contributed stories and articles for national magazines like Harper’s New Monthly, Putnam’s Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, and Scribner’s Monthly, as well as children’s magazines like Youth Companion. She published six more novels and an autobiography, which were well received at the time but largely forgotten today, except in the academic circles that study forgotten women writers. In 1869, she became a regular contributor to and editor of the New York Tribune, where she remained for almost twenty years.
She published more than 500 works over the course of her lifetime. ( A number that makes me tired just thinking about it.) But she was almost forgotten at the time of her death in 1910. She was rediscovered in 1972 when feminist author Tillie Olsen republished Life in the Iron Mills in the Feminist Press.
Today Rebecca Harding Davis is considered a pioneer of literary realism in American literature.
*Or maybe I’m the one bubbling and fizzing. It’s always exciting when the work flows. Sometimes I actually have to stand up and walk away from the computer because I get so excited that I can’t keep up. (Yes, I am a nerd. Your point?)
**As opposed to the days when I look at the list of ideas for blog posts and wonder why I thought any of them were worth writing about. I’ve learned to walk away from that feeling as well, because while some of the ideas in fact turn out to be duds, the real problem in that moment is me. (Apparently the answer is always to get up and walk away.)
***Now West Virginia—a fact which led me down a little rabbit hole. Short version: Many people in the area that is now West Virginia had wanted to secede from Virginia since 1829 for what boils down to insufficient representation in the state legislature , over-taxation, and not enough state funds coming back into the region. When Virginia voted to secede from the United States in 1861, western leaders chose not to follow the state’s lead and remained loyal to the Union. In other words, they seceded from the secession.
****The same month the American Civil War began, and shortly before West Virginia became West Virginia.
Corsets for Victory?
And speaking of lady’s undergarments, as I believe we were, I can’t resist sharing this tidbit:
When America entered World War I in 1917, chairman of the War Industries board Bernard Baruch asked women to stop buying corsets to conserve steel, part of the wider program of rationing, conserving and allocating materials important to the war effort. Thanks to the cooperation of patriotic women, some 28,000 tons of steel was diverted from corset manufacturers to wartime industry. Enough to build two battleships.
Some things you can’t make up.
Ida Rosenthal: Dressmaker Turned Underwear Tycoon
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been thinking about women entrepreneurs and their stories in an on-again off-again way for the last few months. As I stumble across them, I’ll share them with you. Because that’s what I do.
Next up, Ida Rosenthal (1886-1973), whom I mentioned in passing several posts ago.
I first stumbled across Ida Rosenthal in 2012 when I was working on Mankind, the Story of All of Us.* I was writing a sidebar titled “The Other Makers of the Modern World” for a chapter that looked at America’s second industrial revolution and how it transformed the world. I was determined to get a woman in the list. (See note below.) Rosenthal, who invented the modern bra in partnership with her husband, seemed like a perfect choice.
I wrote my three sentences about her, and then I rushed on to the next thing because my deadline for the book was short and the process was, to put it mildly, chaotic. I stumbled across her now and then, but I didn’t have women entrepreneurs on my mind and had other stories to tell you here.
In 1905, a young Jewish woman named Ida Kaganovich immigrated to the United States, following her future husband, a sculptor named William Rosenthal. She believed in socialism and women’s rights. She also was determined to work for herself rather than others. Having apprenticed as a seamstress before she left Russia, she bought a Singer sewing machine** on the installment plan and went into business as a dressmaker, first in Hoboken, New Jersey, and later in Manhattan.
In 1921, Ida was presented with a new opportunity. A woman named Enid Bisett owned a dress shop in mid-town Manhattan, Enid Frocks. One day a customer came in wearing a dress that was new to Enid. When Enid asked about it, she learned it was the creation of a dressmaker named Ida Rosenthal. She made contact with Ida, hoping Ida would supply the shop with some of her dresses. The more they talked, the bigger the possibilities seemed. Instead of using Ida as a suppler, Enid suggested a business partnership.
Soon the partnership expanded. When the Flapper look came into style, many women had to wrap their chests, often in a “bandeau bra,” to achieve the fashionable flat-chested “boyish form.” Ida, not built on the flapper model herself, did not like the idea. “Why fight nature?” she asked. Inspired by Ida’s objections, Enid and William created built-in bandeaux with cups that supported and separated the breasts, making more buxom women took better in their flapper dresses. Customers loved the new dresses, but they loved the new support even more. Return customers asked if they could buy the support without the dress.
By 1922, the partners had registered the name Maiden Form. At first they included one extra support with each dress sold. By 1925, at Ida’s insistence, the partners stopped dressmaking so they could focus on their hot new product. They sold 500,000 bras in 1928. By the end of the 1930s, Maiden Form products were sold in department stories around the world.
Ida was the management and marketing genius; William was the designer. (A division of labor we’ve seen before. ) William died in 1958. Ida continued working until she suffered a stroke in 1966. At her death in 1973, she left behind a multi-million dollar business.
*A companion book for the History Channel series of the same name. And yes, I realize there is inherent sexism in the title, but it was set in stone before I joined the project. Over the years, I’ve tried to think of a better title with no success. Especially since the story as the History Channel wanted it told was very male-centric.
**Isaac Singer ‘s sewing machine was the first widely available home appliance. Commercial sewing machines already existed, but Singer not only improved the machine, he also mass-produced them for the home market.