Madge Garvey (Dorothy Phillips) works in a shoe factory. Her father Joe (Richard de la Reno) is a drunk who beats his wife (Alice May Youss), and her sister Helen (Belle Bennett) has repeated the pattern by marrying Dan Mallory (Edward Brady). The new foreman, John Blake (William Stowell), fires Mallory. Mallory attacks him, but because of his alcohol abuse, his heart gives out and he dies. Blake asks Joe for Madge's hand, and he accepts for her. Madge longs for something better, when Cora, a former stenographer from the company (Golda Madden), writes her from the big city..