Rebecca Harding Davis Quotes
Every child was taught from his cradle that money was Mammon, the chief agent of the flesh and the devil. As he grew up it was his duty as a Christian and a gentleman to appear to despise filthy lucre, whatever his secret opinion of it might be.
Davis, Rebecca Harding. Bits of Gossip. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904, p. 12.
Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis was an American author and journalist. She was a pioneer of literary realism in American literature. She graduated valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary in Pennsylvania. Her most important literary work is the short story "Life in the Iron-Mills," published in the April 1861 edition of The Atlantic Monthly which quickly made her an established female writer. Throughout her lifetime, Davis sought to effect social change for African Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working class, by intentionally writing about the plight of these marginalized groups in the 19th century.