 Cynthia Pilgrim graduates from business school as one of the first students to learn to operate the new-fangled machine, the typewriter. At a time when respectable women did not work outside the home, Cynthia struggles for acceptance at a shipping company in Boston. Romance sparks between her and her boss, John Pritchard, but it is obstructed by his reluctance to accept women in the workplace. Cynthia becomes involved in the growing women s suffrage movement, and soon both her job and her romance are in danger.