После тюремного срока за убийство, Том Джоад возвращается на свое семейное ранчо, которое к тому времени полностью разорилось и прибывает в запустении. В отсутствие какой-либо перспективы найти работу в засушливой Оклахоме, вся семья собирает свой скарб и отправляется на «землю обетованную» — в Калифорнию. Но трудный путь и тяжкие условия не приносят искомой надежды, и даже единство семьи подвергается испытанию, одному из многих, с которыми приходится сталкиваться.
In this drama, a New York physician takes a much-needed vacation down South. Unfortunately, he encounters a nurse working in the backwoods and ends up helping her to combat an epidemic that rages through the mountain communities. The doctor she works for prefers traditional herbs to modern medicine.
A former college football hero and his college sweetheart get married. Marital turmoil ensues as her criminal law practice soars while he cannot get his career as an architect off the ground. They separate, and the man begins making extra money by singing in a nightclub. When he is unjustly accused of murder, it is up to his estranged wife to defend him in court.
An orphaned girl is being raised in the Limberlost by her aunt, who hates her because the girl's mother married the man that the aunt loved. The girl's existence is close to being servitude bondage, and her only companions are the birds and the animals of the forest. She meets and falls in love with a young man whose ambition is to be a lawyer. But her aunt is arranging for her to be married to the wealthiest man in the Limberlost, a drunken, coarse bully.
