When Caldwell submitted the manuscript to Maxwell Perkins in 1937, she was an unknown housewife from Buffalo, New York.

The novel is set in Windsor, Pennsylvania, a fictional mill town on the Allegheny River north of Pittsburgh.

It is an epic multigenerational saga, stretching from 1837 to the eve of World War I, about the Bouchard and Barbour families, who grow their small munitions factory into a great international corporation.

Elder son Ernest is an egoist who believes that money is the greatest power in the world.

Ernest loves Amy Drumhill, the niece of Gregory Sessions, owner of a steel factory.