While working in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, Jennie meets George Brander, a United States Senator, who becomes infatuated with her.

But, after his father's death, he learns that his inheritance of a substantial part of the family business is conditioned on his leaving her.

During their trip to Europe, Kane meets Letty Gerald Pace, an affluent widow.

Dreiser likens Jennie and Lester's relationship to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in Chapter 41.

At Sandwood, Jennie is said to read Washington Irving's Sketch Book, Charles Lamb's Elia, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales, classics of the nineteenth century.

[1] He took it up again in 1910[1] He is believed to have based his character of Jennie on elements of his sisters Mame and Sylvia.

[4] Based on discovered material that had been removed to avoid censorship, a new edition of Jennie Gerhardt, including restored text, was published in the 1990s.

He also suggested that this novel anticipated Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers (1925), in showing the transition of a young woman away from a traditional immigrant culture.