The history of the working class in the United States is the history of the American people themselves. The organized labor movement spread throughout the country to confront the power of monopolies. However, the book vividly describes the response of American monopoly to the great leap of the working class towards industrial unionism. Within its pages, we see Mother Jones, the petite old woman who fought alongside the miners until her hundredth year. But we also see her formidable opponent, John D. Rockefeller, the owner of the mines and founder of modern trust. We see Big Bill Haywood fighting with the gunmen of the monopolies in the Rocky Mountains, but also the imposing, "eagle-like" Morgan, one of the main architects of the monopolies and advocate of the conditions that Haywood fought against. Finally, we see the working class in the United States being born and developing through its struggle against the monopolies.