It explores the friendship between two struggling single mothers: one a working-class white woman who ascends to the top of the business world, and the other her Black housekeeper, whose life is shattered by the rejection of her rebellious, white-passing daughter. It is this latter relationship attuned to America's bitter racial realities and heartbreakingly enacted by trailblazing Black performers Beavers and Washington that lends the film its transcendent emotional power. This first adaptation of Fannie Hurst's best-selling novel boldly confronts the complexities and contradictions of racial identity, economic exploitation, and the limits of the American dream.