Story of a family at the 1903 World's Fair. In Saint Louis before the 1904 World's Fair, Alonzo Smith threatens to uproot his family and move to New York, which greatly upsets his wife and four daughters.

In 1862 Paris, Emile Zola is barely scratching out a living writing muckraking articles about the poverty of the French people and the corruption of their leaders. Until "Nana," about the life of a prostitute, becomes a smash hit and turns Zola into a celebrity, champion of the people. As he churns out a string of similar books that make him quite rich, his old friend Paul Cezanne tells him "An artist should remain poor." His determined intervention...