Strikes, Strikers and Immigrants

At a time when patriotic zeal was paramount, and immigrants were often regarded with hostility and distrust, O'Connor wrote with sympathy, citing external conditions that were responsible for immigrant poverty. The work was ambitious, embracing the full range of social, cultural and economic variables. Though certainly progressive, she assumed some of the stereotypes about immigrant groups common at that time. As she herself wrote nearly 40 years later, “One thing I have learned, through the years, is NOT to generalize a social trait from an individual instance..." She was sympathetic with the strikers, but not with some of the tactics or with strike organizers associated with the IWW.