Bertha Sloan loses her job as a sewing-machine girl and subsequently is employed as telephone girl with a lingerie manufacturing company. She soon falls in love with the assistant shipping clerk, Roy Davis, and is promoted to chief model for the firm, owing to the patronage of Morton, the wealthy and wicked manager. Bertha is about to take a position in Paris as designer when Morton lures her to his home.
When the Civil War breaks out, Alan Kendrick, an army officer born in the South, stays in the army to fight for the Union, but his sweetheart Maryland sides with the South. She soon discovers that Alan was captured by Confederates in a battle near her home and is to be executed. Although he is fighting for her enemy, she cannot bring herself to let him be killed and devises a plan to help him escape.
Jared Wolcott, storekeeper in a small country town, lives with his young sister, Marion. He succumbs to the flirtations of a Mrs. Elmore from a wealthy summer resort, and when he proposes and learns she is married he commits suicide. Marion vows to avenge her brother, and years later, as a successful illustrator in New York, she is engaged to illustrate George Elmore's latest novel. At the Elmore country home, she leads Mrs. Elmore to believe she has won her husband's love, although she is romantically involved with John Corliss. The revelation that Corliss is Mrs. Elmore's brother leads her to forgo her revenge, and disclosing her identity to the family, she leaves. Corliss follows, and they are united.
Edith Frome (Stevens) finds it impossible to live with her alcoholic husband Arthur (L ‘Estrange), and finally leaves him. After three years she returns but leaves each evening, returning late arousing the suspicion of her husband. Having her followed he soon learns that she visits a child. Suspecting the worst because of her friendship with Dr. David Brett (Phillips), he institutes divorce proceedings. Edith confesses the truth about the child and Arthur, realizing his folly, swears off liquor and they are reunited.
Broad-minded rector Stephen Carey is ousted from his church by his vestrymen and befriends Claudia Bigelow, a young divorcée who defended his position in the church. Claudia's carelessness in leaving a cigarette burning causes Jimsy, the housekeeper's son, to go blind. Stephen's prayers restore the boy's sight, and a happy future is predicted for all.
Actress Fay McMillan finds her child, Pauline, whom she deserted years ago, in an orphanage, but Monty, her financer, objects to her taking the girl back.
The Kostomarov family falls apart when a female relative joins the household.
The impoverished Harlow family of New England is forced to take in summer boarders. Teenaged niece Tressie welcomes the change and promptly falls in love with a wealthy young guest named Norman Minot. Although Norman returns Tressie’s affection, he is driven away by a fortune-hunting mother who wants him to marry her daughter. Robert Kitteridge, a scheming artist friend of Norman's, takes Tressie on a sailboat outing, during which they narrowly escape death when their boat is rammed by a steamship. After being put ashore the next morning in Boston, MA, Robert takes Tressie to his studio and attempts to seduce her.
Severely injured after saving the son of Judge Jonathan Le Roy from a team of runaway horses circus clown, Piffle is taken to recover at the Le Roy home where he falls in love with the judge’s daughter, Millicent. She however loves another, Dick Ordway and is secretly carrying his child. When he is reported to have perished in the desert Piffle steps forward to save Millicent’s reputation by being husband and father. Millicent agrees but the judge insists Piffle leave the circus and become a banker. Piffle acquiesces but when Dick reappears many complications ensue.
The story of two feuding Irish immigrant families living in a tenement.
Fannie joins Johnny to perform a music-hall act which becomes a success, until two Broadway producers catch the act and offer Fannie a job on their latest show; however, they have no place for Johnny, so Fannie turns down the offer. (Film considered lost.)
Mike Kildare, a swaggering youth from New York City's Bowery at the turn of the century, comes to the defense of Mamie Rose, a mender in a secondhand clothing shop, when his own gang of Irish-Americans insult her.
A benefactor ejects a tramp who covets his wife and later adopts the child of the girl the tramp saved from suicide.
An Epic Of Passion Swept Lives! The village hero - boasted and popular- yet a coward. Lauded by every loafer- the friend of vagabonds - yet his brother's idol. Then in the crucible of war the coward became a man. Helped by a woman's trust and the love of a tiny boy!
Will the orphan girl win her hero in spite of scheming relatives who seek to keep her in the background?
Bart Carson is in love with Lou and even goes to jail to save Walter A. Walker, a man she says is her brother but who is really a husband who has deserted his wife and two children.
When her father, an indigent artist, dies, Sylvia Lacey goes to live with her Aunt Martha and her uncle, Judge Trent, in New England, where she is unwanted and humiliated. Though she and John Dunham, her uncle's young law partner, fall in love, she believes he intends to marry the daughter of a wealthy neighbor.
Mazie, a shop-girl of New York City's Little Ireland, goes to the aid of a young man in formal attire involved in a street fight. Though badly beaten, he bears a strong resemblance to Lord Lytton, the hero of a magazine story Mazie is reading in installments. Although he is, in reality, a soda clerk, Mazie permits his attentions, and together they read the "Sloppy Stories" yarn about English nobility.
In Paris an Apache dancer weds his ex-fiancée's sister for revenge but learns to love.
The daughter of a count and the son of a shoemaker, both Hungarian, fall in love in America. As they're about to marry, the young woman is called back to Europe. When her betrothed goes after her, difficulties ensue.