Dawn of a New Day takes the reader through mid-twentieth-century life in the British Virgin Islands from 1942 to 1967. It addresses the turbulence of the period in economics, education and politics. The people have been dominated by the UK government all their lives, and especially after 1872, when the Virgin Islands became part of the Leeward Islands Federation. Under the federation, the people were further neglected, and in the 1930s began to wake up when many who had travelled abroad in search of work returned home and began to reshape life in the Territory.. The struggles between the government and the people grew stronger in the 1940s and 1950s, leading to changes in the 1960s.