Set at the turn of the twentieth century in New York City, Dreamland captures the dreams of its immigrant populations and the realities of life in the factories and tenements, the hopes of its marginalized residents and the pathos of their lives, the power of police and politicians and the venality of their public commitments. The nascent union movement, the Tammany Hall "fixers," and corrupt police exist side by side with the arrival of Freud and Jung on a college speaking tour, the excitements promised by carney barkers in the fanciful "cities" at Coney Island, and the growth of young love.