"The Passing of Niagara"

Submitted by admin on Wed, 02/03/2016 - 16:49
Title"The Passing of Niagara"
Year for Search1897
AuthorsDavis, Rebecca [Blaine] Harding(1831-1910)
Secondary TitleThe Independent
Volume / Edition 49.2556
Pagination3-4
Date PublishedNovember 25, 1897
KeywordsFemale author, US author
Annotation

Satire on the technological utopia. The United States becomes entirely practical, focused on making money and producing consumption goods. Niagara Falls is eliminated; the tides are fenced off to produce electricity; the churches all taken over and turned into commercial colleges; veterans benefits abolished; libraries and art galleries sold; horses, dogs, birds, trees, and flowers eliminated; and food made into pills. It was so unsatisfying that everyone left the country.
Info Notes

On the author, see Jean Pfaelzer, Parlor Radical Rebecca Harding Davis and the Origins of American Social Realism. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.
Holding Institutions

TxU
Author Note

Female author (1831-1910).
Full Text

1897 Davis, Rebecca [Blaine] Harding (1831-1910). “The Passing of Niagara.” The Independent 49.2556 (November 25, 1897): 3-4. TxU

Satire on the technological utopia. The United States becomes entirely practical, focused on making money and producing consumption goods. Niagara Falls is eliminated; the tides are fenced off to produce electricity; the churches all taken over and turned into commercial colleges; veterans benefits abolished; libraries and art galleries sold; horses, dogs, birds, trees, and flowers eliminated; and food made into pills. It was so unsatisfying that everyone left the country. On the female author, see Jean Pfaelzer, Parlor Radical Rebecca Harding Davis and the Origins of American Social Realism. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.