They were rich men, and when they clanked into the faces of their workers they saw, with rare exceptions, anonymous cogs in a profit machine" (Von Drehle 36). They were cold-hearted businessmen, and if a few workers killed themselves working for them, why should they worry, it was not their problem.

             The early book chronicles the backgrounds of many of the workers, who were immigrants who came to this country looking for better lives. It also discusses prior strikes at the city's waist factories, and some of the union workers who were advocating change even before the disastrous fire. All this sets the stage for the fire itself, the company, the company's reaction to the fire, and the greed of the owners. This is another thing that is quite interesting that comes from all of this background. First, the owners were often immigrants themselves, who had worked their way up from the bottom of the worker's ranks, and yet, saw fit to treat their brethren worse than animals. Second, it pointed out that corruption and lack of ethics are not a modern business problem. The ethics of Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson have come into question in the past few years, and people wonder if ethics in America are an oxymoron, especially in business. It seems that ethics is not a new issue in business at all, and that greedy owners have always set the pace in questionable business ethics. This book shows this is a long standing tradition in the country, rather than a new and disturbing trend in large corporations.

             Throughout the book, the author weaves details of the worker's daily lives in the factories that show the abuses the owners and managers heaped on the workers, and why so many of them were working for reform. The author writes about how they were followed to the bathroom to make sure they did not stay too long, their pay was manipulated and they were harassed if they complained, and "the owners shaved minutes off each ed of the lunch hour and even 'fixed' the time clocks to stretch the workday.