Incorporating Welfare in Edith Wharton's <i>The Fruit of the Tree</i>

Edith Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree (1907) explores the interdependencies of new urban infrastructure and corporate businesses in early twentieth-century Massachusetts. From the perspective of a floor manager at the powerful Westmore textile corporation, Wharton describes the conditions of her fictional corporation's “suburban working colony” on the outskirts of a pre-existing urban center, Hanaford.1 In the “grey intermediate region of mud and macadam” between Hanaford and the Westmore factory, the town's once “pleasantest suburb,” now also called Westmore, has become “the very negation of hope and life” in its “sordidness” and “out-spread meanness” (23). Westmore's corporate living complex seems designed for maximum efficiency rather than worker comfort, as the business meagerly funds the area's infrastructure. Hastily constructed operatives’ row houses and a company store are connected to the “vast forbidding bulk of the factories” only by an “incipient street” with “cracked pavements,” “crooked telegraph poles,” and “hoardings tapestried with patent-medicine posters” (22). And Amherst worries that the corporation's influence is insidiously expanding into the wider region. It threatens “like some insect-plague” to consume the “green fields” of the Moosuc River valley (24). More pressingly still for Amherst and Wharton's locum nurse protagonist Justine Brent, the firm is insinuating itself ever further into the fabric of Hanaford's civic life and its institutions, especially those of healthcare. Like the real Lowell Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts, the Westmore corporation has financed and built the Hanaford hospital, while managers at the two institutions are connected by family marriages and jointly ensure worker's relief compensation is minimized for workplace injuries.2 Hanaford's grandest residences, Westmore Hall and Hopewood, are held by the two families with majority ownership of the corporation but have been left to fall into disrepair until property prices rise. Meanwhile, in the Westmore suburb itself, only the “showy” roadhouse bar receives investment to placate the corporate factory's workforce: it is, Amherst complains, “the only building in Westmore on which paint was freely lavished” (22).From these first pages, Wharton's novel depicts the social, infrastructural, and institutional complexity of corporate towns in Massachusetts that urban design writers have since tried to taxonomize. John Garner, for example, contends that mill villages, model company towns, and corporate towns should be understood as historically distinct phenomena, with each differentiated from the others by the size of the settlement; the coordination, deliberateness, and motivation of the organizing company; or the number, size or administrative form of the businesses shaping the infrastructure.3 Yet Wharton's novel illustrates that no such clear boundaries existed in the early-twentieth century. Both unincorporated businesses and incorporated enterprises developed towns of varying sizes. Often existing mill villages were slowly turned into corporate towns or business-centered suburbs of existing towns, wherein the extent of corporate or enterprise power, potential coordination, agency, and planning is difficult to ascertain. Partial projects abounded. Paternalistic impulses to create utopian communities comingled with a desire to achieve what Andrew Herod calls “social engineering through spatial engineering” or the pursuit of maximum profit and efficiency through tight control of workers’ lives and environments.4In this idiosyncratic portrayal of a liminal northeastern American landscape changing in tandem with a new corporate business methodology, The Fruit of the Tree departs from contemporary works about corporations and presents a different view of turn-of-the-century corporate capitalism. Frank Norris’ The Octopus (1903) and William Dana Orcutt's The Lever (1911) depict corporate entities as implacably gargantuan, inhuman forces operating as entire substitutes for the state and inevitable determiners of individual fate. Later novels would explore the corporate influence on the development of much larger cities, as in Theodore Dreiser's The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914) or Booth Tarkington's The Turmoil (1915). In contrast, The Fruit of the Tree's heavily researched, realistic, and region-specific narrative recalls the careful exposés of journalists like Ida Tarbell and the Van Vorst sisters, or nineteenth-century English writing on mill towns like Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton (1848). This is to say that the novel evinces a complexly ambivalent, rather than scathingly critical attitude towards twentieth-century business practices, while Wharton's corporate capitalist institutions are far less monolithic than those imagined by her contemporaries. Though her institutions are undeniably powerful, they are also conditional and contingent, intertwining human and non-human elements in a complex web of co-constituting and non-predetermined relationships. “Each of us,” as Wharton put it in 1925, “flows imperceptibly into adjacent people and things” and it is this concern for the nature and moral quality of “flow” between people, things, and places that animates her 1907 novel.5Critics have understood this little-read work as “preoccupied by the problematic (dis)location of human agency” in the context of Progressive-era incorporation.6 Some, like Scott Emmert, see Wharton's early writing as insisting on a certain “social determinism,” a “drawing room naturalism” in which environments and the social forces they represent make “mere puppets” of characters.7 This article argues that the novel is not primarily concerned with the absence, presence, or location of individual human agency. Rather, The Fruit of the Tree examines a particular and regional corporate agency of its early-twentieth-century context and it explores the possibility and nature of actions occurring without or beyond human involvement.8 In this reading, The Fruit of the Tree is a presciently ecological novel that provocatively intertwines its individual characters with other non- or supra-human social units, agents, or places that seem to both shape human individuals and to be shaped by them in turn. As encapsulated in the prefix “eco”—signifying “oikos” or “house”—in the word “ecological,” Wharton's novel is not just intrigued by issues of management in the contemporary corporation, corporate town, or Massachusetts itself. She instead wonders specifically how the management of individual welfare, as well as the management of houses, households, families, and legacies, should be understood in a newly incorporated context. The Fruit of the Tree provokes its reader to consider whether the changing dynamics of these “local” intimate relationships merely figure regional and national conditions, or whether they influence or change wider networks more profoundly than previously assumed.Yet though the novel encourages its reader to think through these new relationships between individuals, agents such as the corporation, and broader places or social units extending beyond the human individual, The Fruit of the Tree does not neatly align with the traditional paradigm of literary naturalism. This is not a novel in which, as Emmert writes, Wharton's “static, socially determined characters” experience their inevitable fate (9). Unlike Norris’ The Octopus or Orcutt's The Lever, corporate agency here is not deterministic nor does the corporate town entirely shape its residents. Rather, the characters’ shaping of the town forms the novel's main action. Neither are Wharton's characters entirely products of their social milieu. Corporate power is undoubtedly influential in the novel, but its central tensions revolve around the nature of corporate agency and corporate agency's interplay with and shaping of individual agency and other social dynamics such as class and gender.This article challenges the traditional critical interpretation of the novel as between its and narrative that The Fruit of the Tree a of as a novel how of urban and to the lives and of More that Wharton's with management and contemporary her to a novel that the of real developed two civic institutions of the northeastern corporations and the in 1907 of the novel, enterprises new management that specifically for socially in or healthcare. as or “social these new managers were to work as between traditional management and with the potential to working conditions and for This form of work was by in the of with a that and for corporate these manager a new class of American to in in they to rather than conditions for the of this the on civic and urban in contemporary novel should be as a in this and contemporary that incorporated into management of The Fruit of the Tree to the moral dynamics and in the dynamics of and the corporate and communities of the early-twentieth century. The novel and critical that and does the management of urban environments and their on both managers and the management be or management be does the of from corporate to the social, and of civic life in the have for the of literary and at the of the Wharton and in In to in as the of the towns in the more of for its and literary been a and a to property for in the It was an location for a newly the of The of to have a new designed and built by her on The of The was The a and now by English and the in The of living in such Wharton was undoubtedly that of urban were on some of the and textile corporations in the not the as these urban were to be as well as other Massachusetts towns such as and the towns of and just of Wharton's new her for Hanaford and Westmore a of two towns, cities, the River in the century. This first the influence of of textile enterprises such as and as urban and the textile which incorporated in the of of these corporations constructed and like and for their at these businesses conditions, and those company and from company entirely on the corporations for their The of such families were into to for the in and depict these working as on or the to be called to work and and work at such was and life in the towns was no for a that the for mill between the of and was to than that of while for were only worker as “the in and “the ever that the as much as the a still the Fruit of the Tree a context by of these broader social and specifically from corporate of the early-twentieth the for and in corporate into was to that the the that particular of or be to as put it in and the in the early-twentieth not as writes, to the as been of nineteenth-century to but to the influential writers of works that Wharton such as that a more of the between other and their environments of and social management as well as This in though American and like Wharton were more to the through the of Both as in of what calls were in a newly to and of the living on as an while Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree depicts the of working and living conditions in a Massachusetts corporate town, it that seems less in these than in the area's of networks of power and and corporate are not only the novel but are Wharton's clear from the very textile is to by Justine Brent, a nurse an in Hanaford's The worker's has been by designed to Yet Wharton describes the in nor the itself. The is but Wharton has fall the instead to what would the of the or how management and the its social and the corporate town and more John an manager at the Westmore corporation, to Amherst be not to the but to the business that a to the of of and are to Westmore as seems of the of connected with the management of her that is to Amherst to the of the worker's in for for the This Wharton to the corporate of the company and town in through to that the Westmore corporation is in an with the it has to the extent that and compensation for and their their at the like are with a and from a the of of this only to the that would be called a of The as an has become and from the business of Westmore what as a social Amherst to compensation by a of to corporate novel a of twentieth-century in were not only by the at which they or by the they but also by infrastructural, or corporations to on and about would be in a from relief from for example, working at would as an their to a of is that Wharton's novel depicts a new of that was by this and the novel more further not merely about the of this but about this and how it is by corporate Wharton's novel that corporate just as and as the that The agents of corporate that has as well as the of and that and and as in Wharton's as her human Meanwhile, Amherst and as managers of of their incorporated are to a in a just of of the in other that the corporation itself an of with and Wharton of corporate agency and its with a individual, as of her contemporaries. Amherst like real contemporary of corporate that the and of in the town are by the corporate newly and its agency difficult to with of the between and Amherst is of “the of the new by an of the for the individual the of its majority Westmore, the Westmore corporation is especially by what The business is as a held corporation, in which is and family or other in this held corporate to an in the management of this is not the at Wharton's The of the corporation, no in the town nor the Meanwhile, and the newly company to the profit working is no corporate in the of Dreiser's Frank or Amherst the of in an of is some that also has the that though and by the of is not concerned in the about her only hope of changing the Westmore corporation, is to into and what they and they to become the with the make what as Wharton's the of of corporate in the is that on “the of in workers’ lives by “the individual to is to the nature of the “social The individual is not merely but no as a As Westmore, the new majority with Amherst to of social the in her that have to for her was the the reader that as individual as not be as a at Amherst to the that Westmore a of that was the company while only a in the that the and of Wharton's to Westmore a of how control her her the corporation and her and a that into Hopewood, a and to to a family with a in the of and to their from “the of view of think of and the is The in the room to while the Amherst as an without to in but Wharton conditions here to The corporation, to does not to a model of and is to of room while a of lives as much for as Westmore, from a not this and a of the make to such an of the floor As a to the of to the of and but in this such are is much than it to be to has just that with the of a and Westmore the of a to of and it of corporate but and to while Wharton this by the of As with to “the of view of with and her that of business and of the of institutions new and of power and agency. Meanwhile, forms in the the by a and the and on work to on class like are but as to an here and with in Wharton's The of careful of new in business social and a certain of agency in corporate actions and are to these like and her are their of they in their corporate as of class and as about business as at or that is and has for see also Amherst this of business and the of corporate ownership to in to workers’ conditions in the mill and the town more to the and at the and of the to of to the people that business Like contemporary social in and corporate in an a for on the that is in “the of her novel the contemporary around the that have an for and its on work in corporate institutions more The new of and “social first by the Corporation and by a of corporations the work in corporate management to and like Wharton and The Fruit of the Tree's and It as writes, to the by class and Yet in the and of this newly for was far from a for for other of her social or for contemporary social and management such new managers that in to the of and of a or mill the these to to with such as that the with both and the an influence and than that of the such that and create conditions of and such as managers was beyond control of the to what much called “the of the with the as were more of of a that been developed by such as and in the into the of a working the corporation held at writes, such workers’ attitude contemporary it to see wherein the would between a worker's and a since of the change Meanwhile, of the management with the which be to the such as the the the the the such the of managers was a of the of through of newly Wharton's novel, to have is become and each with Wharton extending management Yet the between and Amherst does not to the them not as her but as a of the organizing the a on the This seems as much a as in for the and the building which was to the and Amherst to think that “the were in of the that Westmore was the in of both and the of twentieth-century corporate that to through to in the of the business to be its form of of corporate agency and a of individual agency. from about the of corporate of their projects and to the Westmore business as her in and profit while the of the corporation should be the concern of the and to her and no in the work to the corporation and its less and less at Westmore and with living instead at a in a colony” on to to the and their as the and of in it for a in the early of their is to that to it be to have see how her and is on others working their in of conditions be to create is no that her to her nor does itself some class Amherst in her in the management of the business and further that to a American social life and the of of that social the social are by “the of with life” and how new on in these larger of As of was an to create to an of at Amherst to in and actions of which the real and while work at the corporation, to about and and to in of and by from a that her to while not to and those of her class workplace by Wharton's novel does not corporate managers such as Amherst to corporate enterprises by to or the corporate This is further in of Brent, a for in Westmore's management of Westmore's influence on the and its institutions, is not a to the In seems to Westmore and its than as would be of a worker a context of in by the and for and at with for management by corporate in the in their and for this with in or In this is not called the but the Like managers of Wharton's Amherst as of the with as the the factory, that the in the would have it with the the of is both a and a corporate to with a of that some been to her a in the that Wharton's with corporate in from her of the view that of life In to to the view that more life is been of of was at a of life for in the the from such a fate for The the of the be of the of Yet from it was a were as would have have to the and of the novel as in and a more of the early twentieth-century corporate the The in the novel is the of as it is through Westmore's corporate environments and corporate model of is to life without to create a just as not achieve a of for but rather the of life in which they be for the Westmore The this the corporate model of welfare, of as Wharton in the of just as the of the relief of the Westmore this only a of rather than living The is in the Wharton to what extent Amherst and this corporate model of first by entirely in of the by to be at her the of careful in the more of the The of the different of work and their only as as an to a to her to for her and to work to this corporate model of welfare, of work is on an of the life and of for She of at and of the of her into for to her model for welfare, as that the Amherst of her that nor nor her model of She has and has in not to nor but to the corporate and its for her such an She Amherst and the should her be to Westmore's corporate only to a and model of work that is in of and a of what such work to at She Amherst and of in of the hospital, the the and the other and Amherst were to put some of social into the lives of the And though the town and its are by the by on her Wharton's novel is about what such work are of in a of and and in a social The was itself in the of the the on the and the and Westmore “the of a environments and Wharton's novel seems to social calls “social those would to as socially More than such places an of the between human and non-human that to the of their in its to their lives and to the larger what in Westmore's new is as much a of as a Amherst is that for a new were only for her and as as a to the mill does not that desire to from desire to power in the corporate factory, not from for More to that does not that they no have a real nor life of their her of and desire to at It is not the mill now new to each by with their in their as it they only by each of the novel further Wharton to in which the that a to a that this work create “green with and on that Yet has once has become the of and the is not civic work but Like Amherst at the of the novel at the has built at the corporate but that for the to be only at her More still for Brent, is the work at the and to the to that make it to her as the of a a it was with Amherst to her that the of the is the that they have been the of life to of the Brent, a more reader of only a at her to She that the of the was not Amherst for it with but Brent, and only a She to Amherst nor her and social as manager at the corporate mill and as Wharton's is with and of just as the in her the of slowly the of the corporate town In to the that corporate is no building of a utopian civic but only think of the of both and to a that is to by that Wharton's novel is ecological and in the nature and moral of the between individuals, and other twentieth-century agents such as the From its with twentieth-century corporate novel Wharton's concern with the and of contemporary a This much is clear in the novel's has been in a of the as Wharton's this management is different from the management to ensure moral and the other social units, such as the the and individuals, especially In Wharton's early-twentieth-century corporate town as a for further they represent an and of more life and more life and in her Wharton her of novel writing in Like a corporate factory, to her and each a in and in the of of of it in and to the of and Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree provokes to consider the distinct of social, and as newly not entirely in the early twentieth-century different of work no be and each on the other to The management of such what Wharton calls in its She not for more not for writers nor businesses to the of and and in the that but for and to as the in the the nature of the by the moral it is it still to the nature of the profoundly of American incorporated by at its Wharton to in this that The Fruit of the Tree to as it a by to such an