In a dystopian society, a young widow is placed in a holding facility to spend her days learning home economics until she's chosen to be the wife of a new man.

Once fired from her housemaid post with the MacFarland family, whose son she loved deeply, Lula Borrow falls into street-peddling, religious fanaticism, and direly ill health. Lula Borrow barely escapes her abusive husband, whose maltreatment kills one of their two children. Her sole reprieve is a housemaid post with the MacFarland family, whose son she loves deeply, and when she is fired she falls into street-peddling, religious fanaticism, and direly ill health.

A working-class mother has held only one hope for her entire life: that one day, her daughter would marry well and wealthy, and take care of her in her old age. When her daughter reveals that the man she loves is not wealthy, her mother's dreams of rest are dashed and divided.

When the Great Depression hits a well-to-do family, an eighteen-year-old girl works at a ranch to put herself through college, enduring the difficulty of the work while also enjoying being away from the stifling environment of her home.

A self-reliant but lonely woman becomes excited by the incidental visit of two boys in her apartment. When she unwisely lends them her long-buried trust and kindness, she quickly regrets it.

A mother struggles to provide her daughter with comfort in an unstable home as her husband constantly searches for new employment.

After hiring multiple caretakers, one after another, a family finds a near perfect woman whom they adore. However, they are met with a surprise when the caretaker's term comes to an end.

Lynnie is a young, working-class girl who works at the Stone House in town and wastes her days making stories about the lives of the people around her, which she tells to her friend, Isobel. But when rumors start to circulate, Isobel mysteriously moves away, and Lynnie is left wondering why.

A woman gets married and chooses to leave her busy job as a stenographer. She soon becomes restless in the daily short-lived tedium of housewifery and begins developing feelings for a new man.

After a fifteen-year-old girl makes a bet with her father that after high school she will leave home to never return, her father takes her to the train station early one morning and tells her to leave. When she winds up in Los Angeles, she finds her way there, despite the fact that she does not feel free.