Warren's family is firmly middle class until one day, her father loses his job as a carpet salesman because he can no longer do his job after a serious heart attack threatens his life. The family's bills start stacking as he tries his luck as a small engine salesman. Eventually, the bank comes to take the family car. The bank makes threats to take their home as well. Warren recalls a moment when her mother weeping, wearing an old dress that is too tight, hoping to get hired at Sears.
Warren says that this upbringing shaped her opinion of banks and big financial institutions. She feels that, for too long, the American Dream has been disrupted and infected by predatory institutions that keep honest, hard-working people in struggle by exorbitant interest rates and exacting punishments when hard times come. Young Warren decides to make her life into a fight against these institutions, going to college on a debate scholarship. She even went to law school even when she had children.
One day, Rutgers University calls her and invites her to a professorship, and she accepts. She later learns that the man who was originally hired to teach the course betrayed the University to make a fortune on the stock market. She describes her eventual rise to politics, explaining the history of her positions. She details her battle against big-business lobbyists and reminds the reader of her political stance—she is for the common man and against big businesses who exploit honest people for exorbitant gain.
