McCormick worked for the "New York Times" for 32 years, covering foreign affairs. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, for her work as a foreign correspondent, which often included writing about how the average person was affected by them. "The Hammer and the Scythe" is based on articles she originally wrote for the "New York Times", reporting her impressions of Russia ten years after the Revolution. The contents include: All the Russias; The Capital of the Proletariat; The Capital of the Tzars; The New Ruling Class; Commissars of the People; The Peasant; On the Volga; Daughters of the Revolution; The Soviet Generation; Ikons; The Worker at Play; Communist Art; The World from Moscow; and Moscow, Rome and New York.