The Life of Rebecca Harding Davis
1831
c.1836
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June 24 — Rebecca Blaine Harding (RHD) is born in Washington, Pennsylvania.
The Harding family moves to Wheeling, Virginia.
RHD enters Washington Female Seminary in Washington, PA.
RHD takes communion for first time at St. Matthews Episcopal Church.
RHD graduates valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary.
RHD publishes periodicals in the Wheeling Intelligencer.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad comes to Wheeling, soon changing the town to an important iron manufacturing center.
Archibald Campbell becomes editor of Wheeling Intelligencer; paper becomes a strong supporter of Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, and antislavery; some time thereafter RHD begins publishing occasional editorials/articles in its pages.
RHD publishes in the Atlantic Monthly, Galaxy, Health and Home, Lippincott’s, Peterson’s, New-York Tribune, Putnam’s, Wheeling Intelligencer.
April — RHD publishes her first fiction piece, “Life in the Iron-Mills,” in the Atlantic Monthly.
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April 17 — Virginia secedes from the Union.
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Mid-April — Atlantic Monthly editor James T. Fields rejects RHD's novel “The Deaf and The Dumb” as too gloomy; she rewrites it for serialization as "Margret Howth".
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May 13 — There is a convention in Wheeling to counter Virginia’s secession; shortly thereafter Wheeling becomes capital of “New Virginia”.
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May 20 — RHD begins correspondence with Annie Adams Fields; around same time she corresponds with Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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November — RHD begins publishing anonymously in Peterson’s Magazine, for which she will be a regular contributor for 32 years.
March — Wheeling becomes headquarters of the Mountain Department of the Union Army under the command of General John C. Frémont; RHD becomes friends with Frémont and his wife Jessie Benton Frémont.
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June to mid-August — RHD travels with her brother Hugh as escort to New York, where she visits Frémonts; Boston to see the Fieldses; Concord to see Hawthorne, Emerson, the Alcotts, and other renowned New England writers; Philadelphia, where she visits L. Clarke Davis, a lawyer with whom she has been corresponding since he wrote to praise “Life in the Iron-Mills”; and Baltimore, where she visits her friend Rev. Cyrus Dickson and his spouse.
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October — Margaret Howth published in book form
March 5 — RHD marries L. Clarke Davis (1835-1904) in Wheeling, moves with him to Philadelphia where she lives for the remainder of her life.
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Late 1863 — Exhausted and pregnant, RHD is ordered to bed for rest and no writing by her physician, S. Weir Mitchell.
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December — RHD visits Wheeling to see her ailing father.
March 20 — RHD's father dies.
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April 18 — RHD's first son Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) is born; RHD is very ill after giving birth (a combination of postpartum depression and shock of her father’s death). By late June, she is recovering.
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Fall — RHD visits her mother in Washington, PA; while away, Clarke moves them into their first home, a rented row house.
April 14 — President Lincoln is assassinated; RHD writes to Annie Adams Fields of the “great and holy” cause for which Lincoln died.
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Summer — The Davis family begins to spend summers on the Manasquan coast of New Jersey at Point Pleasant, a pattern they will continue for many years.
January — RHD suffers from neuralgia in the breast and right arm.
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January 24 —The Davis' second son Charles Belmont Davis (1866-1926) born.
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December — RHD begins writing for The Galaxy.
Early — The Davis family moves to another rented row house.
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February-December — "Waiting for the Verdict" is serialized in The Galaxy.
Early — The book version of Waiting for the Verdict appears.
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January — RHD begins publishing in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine with serial “Dallas Galbraith”.
Early — RHD returns to journalism, becoming contributing editor for the New-York Tribune (a position she will hold for twenty years);
Clarke becomes managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
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January — RHD begins publishing in Hearth and Home with the temperance serial “The Tembroke Legacy”.
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February — RHD begins publishing in Putnam’s Magazine; The Davises move into the first home they own at 230 South Twenty-first Street (they live there for the remainder of their lives).
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November — RHD becomes involved in a campaign to reform the treatment of the mentally ill with an editorial in the New-York Tribune; she will continue the campaign during the following spring with serial “Put Out of the Way” in Peterson’s.
Periodical publications appear in American Homes, Appleton’s, Atlantic Monthly, Congregationalist, Galaxy, Golden Rule, Harper’s, Hearth and Home, Herald and Presbyter, Independent, Lippincott’s, New-York Tribune, Our Young Folks, Peterson’s, Philadelphia Press, Putnam’s, Riverside Magazine for Young People, Saturday Evening Post, Scribner’s Monthly, St. Nicholas, Wood’s Household, and Youth’s Companion.
January — RHD begins publishing children’s literature in Our Young Folk and the next month in the Riverside Magazine for Young People.
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November — RHD begins publishing with newly founded Scribner’s Monthly Magazine.
RHD begins writing for Youth’s Companion, for which she will remain a regular contributor for 26 years.
October 16— RHD's daughter Nora Davis (1872-1958) is born.
January — RHD returns to Wheeling and is dismayed at the environmental destruction from oil production. She also publishes her last story for many years in Atlantic Monthly, now under William Dean Howells’ editorship.
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November — RHD's first story appears in a St. Nicholas, a juvenile periodical, after being approached by Mary Mapes Dodge.
John Andross, a critique of capitalist corruption, is serialized in Hearth and Home and published in book form.
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Kitty’s Choice: A Story of Berrytown, and Other Stories is published after the serializatioon as “Berrytown” in Lippincott’s.
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August — RHD travels to North Carolina for research for stories to be published in Scribner’s in 1875. She also becomes a regular contributor of editorial cultural analyses for The Independent; she will write for the periodical 34 years.
March — RHD begins publishing fiction in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
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May 10 — The Centennial Exhibition opens in Philadelphia; RHD contributes articles on the Centennial to numerous periodicals.
February — RHD corresponds with Kate Field about British publication of her work.
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March — RHD begins publishing in Boston’s The Golden Rule (later named Sunday Afternoon).
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May — RHD becomes a regular contributor to The Congregationalist; she writes for the periodical for 26 years.
July — RHD travels to Cheat Mountain in West Virginia and is joined by her brother Hugh. She then travels to North Carolina and Point Pleasant.
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A Law Unto Herself is published in book form
May — RHD travels to the North Carolina mountains.
Periodical publications appear in American Agriculturalist, Atlantic Monthly, Brooklyn Magazine, Century Illustrated, Church Magazine, Congregationalist, Fireside Teacher, Friends’ Intelligencer, Golden Argosy, Good Company, Harper’s Bazar, Harper’s New Monthly, Independent, Lippincott’s, New-York Tribune, North American Review, Our Continent, Peterson’s, Philadelphia Telegraph, Scribner’s Monthly, Scribner’s Magazine, and Youth’s Companion.
RHD extends her journalism by publishing with Philadelphia Press newspaper under Moses Purnell Handy’s editorship.
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December — RHD begins her public condemnation of US policies toward Native Americans with editorial in New-York Tribune; Helen Hunt Jackson seeks RHD's help in getting out information about “the Indian Question”.
RHD spends part of the summer in Alabama, researching for publications.
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October 9 — RHD's mother Rachel Leet Wilson Harding dies while staying with Davises.
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November — RHD publishes again in the Atlantic Monthly under the editorship of Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
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Rose Terry Cooke visits RHD in Philadelphia.
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RHD's long-time editor at Peterson’s, Charles J. Peterson, dies.
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March — RHD is seriously ill but recovering by late March.
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May — RHD begins publishing nonfiction as well as fiction in Congregationalist; she will contribute to the periodical for 16 years.
Spring — RHD travels South collecting material for serial “Here and There in the South” (Harper’s).
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April — Ida Tarbell identifies RHD as one of the notable women journalists of the era.
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Summer — RHD begins spending part of summer in Marion, Massachusetts. She is joined by family friends Frances and President Grover Cleveland.
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October — Clarke resigns as managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer to take position as lead writer for the Public Ledger, the prominent newspaper in Philadelphia; in November he is promoted to associate editor.
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December — RHD begins writing for Harper’s Bazaar.
RHD resigns from her editorial correspondent position at the New-York Tribune after twenty years. In these years, the Davis family also becomes one of most prominent literary, journalistic, and society families in US (the literary reputation of the Davis family continues until RHD's death).
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November — RHD is revealed to be a “salaried editorial attaché” for Youth’s Companion.
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Periodical publications appear in the Book Buyer, Century Illustrated, Century’s End, Christian Observer, Congregationalist, Harper’s Bazar, Harper’s New Monthly, Independent, Ladies’ Home Journal, Lady’s Treasury, North American Review, Peterson’s, Scribner’s Magazine, St. Nicholas, and Youth’s Companion.
January — Former President and Mrs. Cleveland are guests of the Davises for three days. This creates extraordinary media attention.
May — RHD travels to Europe for the first time with Nora on the City of Paris out of New York City; they travel in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Clarke joins them in England in July.
October — RHD and her daughter Nora return to the States.
October — RHD publishes a collection of short stories, Silhouettes of American Life.
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Late — RHD publishes young adult novel, Kent Hampden.
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January — RHD ends her 32-year association with Peterson’s Magazine.
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May — RHD attends Chicago’s World’s Fair with her daughter Nora.
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June 6 — RHD dines with Clarke and son Richard at Delmonico’s in New York City; this will become a common practice for the Davises.
Summer — RHD travels to Florence, Italy with her daughter Nora and visits her son Charles who is the US Consul there.
August — RHD returns to the States to spend the remainder of summer in Marion.
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Summer — RHD travels to Europe. While in England, she meets Frances Willard for first time.
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November — RHD publishes her novel Doctor Warrick’s Daughters.
As the end of century nears, many retrospectives name RHD as one of the century’s most notable writers.
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RHD publishes her last novel, Frances Waldeaux.
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August — RHD begins spending part of each summer in Warm Springs, Virginia. She will continue this pattern for the next decade.
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February — The USS Maine explodes in Havanna Harbor; this is the beginning of the Spanish-American War, which will later influence RHD's writings.
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July — RHD publishes one of her most provocative anti-war articles, “The Mean Face of War”.
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Periodical publications appear in Century Illustrated, Christian Observer, Churchman, Congregationalist, Harper’s New Monthly, Independent, Chicago Interior, Ladies’ Home Journal, Metropolitan, Outlook, Saturday Evening Post, Scribner’s Magazine, Smart Set, St. Nicholas, Success, and Women’s Home Companion.
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December — Former President Cleveland and his wife stay with the Davises in Philadelphia.
February — RHD publishes a damning critique of “Lord Kitchner’s Methods” in the Boer War. She also arrives in Ocala, Florida with Clarke, whose health is failing (the couple have been spending winters here for a few years and will do so until Clarke’s death in 1904).
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June 24 — RHD celebrates her 70th birthday. Around this time, she also becomes an editorial correspondent for the New York World newspaper.
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May — RHD becomes a regular contributor to the Saturday Evening Post.
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RHD publishes her autobiography, Bits of Gossip.
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December 14 — RHD's husband L. Clarke Davis dies
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RHD continues to summer at Warm Springs
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May — RHD travels to Europe with Nora
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Late summer — RHD summers in Warm Springs and Point Pleasant.
May — RHD publishes her first article in the New-York Tribune in nearly three decades.
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January — RHD's eyesight is so bad now that she has difficulty reading and writing.
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July — RHD spends time writing a family history for her children.
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Fall — RHD has successful eye surgery and returns to publishing in several periodicals.
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January — RHD becomes ill and does not recover until April.
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Summer — RHD spends the summer at Warm Springs, Virginia, with her daughter Nora.
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Early in year — RHD suffers minor stroke, but recovers by summer.
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June — RHD celebrates her 79th birthday. An article honoring her appears in Life.
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Summer — RHD spends the summer at Point Pleasant, New Jersey. She then travels through Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York to see friends, ending at son Richard’s New York home, Crossroads Farm.
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September 29 — RHD dies at her son Richard’s home. Obituaries appear in newspapers across the country; one of the best appears in the New-York Tribune where she had gained her reputation as a journalist.