Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owner's son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men. "The revolution urged by Mary Barton is a revolution in the emotional and mental dispositions of individuals towards each other … a thoroughly idealist enterprise."
—Macdonald Daly