McKinley's Ghost & the Little Tin Truck tells the story of the Millers, a fictional family struggling among the real events of the early 20th century: the end of the Progressive Era, The Great War and influenza pandemic, prohibition, voting rights for women, the conservative take-over, the Red Scare, xenophobic hatred of immigrants and other "inferiors," lynching and race riots, union-busting, the elevation of "business" in government and the resulting unparalleled corruption, a wild stock market, spiraling income disparity, the Great Depression, national despair and the seeds of the next world war.