Jennie Gerhardt Chapter 1

The Theodore Dreiser Library · Sep 14, 2026 · 28m · transcript

In which a mother and her pretty, timid daughter, driven by poverty and illness in their household, seek and find humble work cleaning at a grand hotel in Columbus, Ohio, where the daughter encounters the quiet splendour and social throng of the city’s elite. The story gently unfolds around their struggle for dignity and survival amidst the meagreness of their lives, with an unexpected kindness from a senator marking the beginning of a faint hope.