Behind in the mortgage on Sunnybrook Farm and barely managing to feed seven hungry mouths, mother sends young Rebecca off to Riverboro to be raised by her wealthy Aunt Miranda. The little girl is treated like a prisoner by her strict Aunt, yet she gamely does her best to get an education. When spoiled girls at school mock the spirited Rebecca as "missy poor-house," she soon makes them come to eat their words. Despite many difficulties, Rebecca manages to help the less fortunate and spread joy in Riverboro, dreaming that her reward will come when she is "all growed up." This version is notable for having been adapted by famed female screenwriter Frances Marion.

A 1917 film directed by Paul Powell.

What will become of the Children in a home divided....

Three college boys graduate. One is in love with a girl, whose mother and father have domestic difficulties. They go to court and are divorced. Father is refused the request for his daughter, and in turn kidnaps her and takes her to another state, where he becomes a great political factor. Bill, one of the graduated college boys who is in love with the girl, with his two companions, traces the girl and steal her away. In doing so his hand is burned with a poker and the father uses that as a means of identification in tracing him.

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.