A deadly epidemic and racial segregation at the turn of the last century causes a young woman to flee for a new life with meaning and hope, despite a sense that things will never be the same. Arriving in New York City, she encounters the latest industrial wonders and the shadows of the industrial masses left behind. A burgeoning new art world-including the impressionist work of painter Mary Cassett, a beloved relative and a kind stranger with a camera-figures in her new life.