1. What portrait of factory and political bosses emerges from the descriptions in these documents? How did bosses differ from working people? Why? To what extent did working people cooperate with bosses? Why?

2. To what extent did Thomas O'Donnell's experiences with factory work compare with the experiences of women domestic servants, and the parents of abandoned children?

3. To what extent were Plunkitt's notions of politics shared by the socialists and anarchists Wyckoff heard in Chicago? How were mothers and caretakers of abandoned children influenced by politics as practiced by Plunkitt?

4. How did the people described in these documents define economic justice and injustice? In their views, what might lead to greater justice? Politics? Unions? Bosses? Religion?

5. These documents focus on the deep class divisions in American society in the late nineteenth century. Judging from these documents, what had created these divisions, and what might be done to bridge them? To what extent did working people share the ideals and aspirations of employers? To what extent did working people agree among themselves?