The film is based on the 1914 Broadway play of the same name written by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners.

[1][2] As described in a film magazine review,[3] Jenny Wray, the sole support of her mother, obtains work in a modiste's shop.

Happiness marked the second and final cinematic collaboration between Vidor and well-known stage actress Laurette Taylor.

[5] Manners' vehicle for Laurette Taylor is largely a facsimile of his 1912 play Peg o' My Heart, with the setting moved from rural British Isles to the urban New York City.

The entrepreneurial Jenny (Taylor) struggles in this Brooklyn lower-class milieu to ultimately achieve social and financial security.