"Life in the Iron Mills";" or, The Korl Woman" is widely considered Rebecca Harding Davis's most significant work. Published in 1861 in "The Atlantic Monthly", "Life in the Iron-Mills" was one of the first works to explore industrialization in American literature. The short story saw its publication around the dawn of the American Civil War, and is one of Davis's earliest published works. It has become an important text not only for its artistic merit, but for its historical implications. Both its form and content were ground breaking at the time of its publication, being a narrative that follows the lives of laborers and the consequences of industrialization, in a traditionally realistic style.