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?
To what extent did Thomas O’Donnell’s experiences with factory work com
pare with the experiences of women domestic servants, and the parents of
abandoned children?
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 infl uenced by politics as practiced by Plunkitt?
