An experiment goes wrong and blinds a newly married chemist. The chemist's wife does not want to take on the burden of caring for the blind chemist, and her younger sister take her place.
After her mother's death, Ruth struggles to support herself as a seamstress. While Ruth delivers shirts to the factory owner, the owner's son steals some money and Ruth is accused of the crime. She flees the ghetto of New York's Lower East Side and hides in the country where she meets a young...
A young woman becomes infatuated with the leading man of a traveling theatrical troupe. She sneaks away to join him in the next town, but her father forces her to return home...
A widower and his two daughters live in the wilds of the north woods. They form the acquaintance of two trappers, Bob Cole and Jim Watson, who hunt in the neighborhood. As fate will have it, both trappers love the same girl, the elder sister, but she loves Bob, while the younger girl is attracted...
During the Civil War, a father living in a border state leaves to join the Union Army. After he leaves, Confederate troops forage on his property, where a soldier encounters one of his daughters. The father himself is wounded on a hazardous mission and must run for his life, pursued by Confederate...
On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who...
An old colonel is proud as a peacock: his son leads a group of volunteers in the American Civil War. Untill one day his son returns home as a deserter.
A farmer takes in a young orphan after her mother's death and sends her off to school. After she's grown, he encourages her to consider his younger brother as a husband. When the younger brother proves to be a coward, she chooses the older brother instead.
Two spinsters on their way to church, are accosted by a couple of burly tramps. When Mabel is called to the church meeting with her mother, she sends Muggsy a note asking him to meet her after the service so he may walk home with her. Muggsy is there on time, however, the old ladies are afraid to...
Peggy is a high-spirited young woman from a poor family. One day she catches the eye of a wealthy lord, who proposes marriage and wants to introduce her into his social circle. But complications arise when the lord's nephew also becomes attracted to Peggy.
A story about a poor young man who falls ill, while his wealthy employer ignores his plight and instead spends lavishly on a pearl necklace for his wife. The poor man recovers with the help of his community, while the rich wife falls ill and dies, the necklace ultimately proving useless
A thin gent in formal wear, amid a club or party, reads a book about primitive man after he's ignored by a pretty lady. We see the book enacted: Weakhands loses his girlfriend to Bruteforce, but chances upon a design for a weapon to vanquish his rival and win her back. His tribe sees this and sets...
Joseph Graybill, learning that his friends have been making a lot of money in the stock market, takes a flyer himself. However, when a drop in the shares he has bought wipes him out, he breaks into his employer's safe for money to pay for a margin call. Will the thought of his grey-haired mother...