Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

The story is a highly fictionalized telling of the story of Edna Gladney, an early advocate for the rights of illegitimate children in Texas.

Edna Kahly and her adopted sister, Charlotte, are to be married. But, when Charlotte's mother-in-law-to-be discovers that Charlotte was a foundling, she declares the wedding must not occur, and Charlotte kills herself from shame. Meanwhile, Edna falls for a brash cashier, Sam Gladney, at the bank, and eventually marries him and moves with him to his home state of Texas.

Sam Gladney has a flour mill in Sherman, Texas, and at first the couple has an idyllic life, though after a difficult delivery Sam is told Edna must have no more children. Several years later, their son dies, and Sam's effort to replace him with a foundling fails. But the little girl's story touches Edna's heart, and she starts a day care center for the children of working women.

Sam's business fails, and they must auction off all their possessions. The local women take over the day care center, and Sam and Edna mve to Fort Worth, Texas, where he has a job in a mill. Edna starts a home for orphans and illegitimate children, and works hard to find them appropriate homes, matching parents to child by interests and inclinations. When a young woman comes to try to donate a large sum of money, Edna worms the young woman's story out of her, and discovers she is in a similar situation to poor Charlotte. After insisting the girl's fiance won't care that she is illegitimate, she decides to campaign to have the word illegitimate removed from Texas birth certificates.

After succeeding in her quest, Edna faces one more trial—the little crippled boy she has raised from an infant and nursed back to health finds a new home at last. She is reluctant to let him go, but at last realizes it is for the best, and, as she tends to the two newest foundlings, brought to her door by a policeman, the music comes up and the End title card comes on the screen.