Stefan Dangosbiblicek, a Czech immigrant, arrives at Ellis Island in the 1890s and makes his way to the Mesabi Iron Range, where he joins his cousin Anton Dubechek working in the open-pit ore mines. He is renamed “Steve Dangos” by a foreman, beginning a long journey that tests his grit and his dreams of a better life. In the Iron Range, he meets Anna, a teacher, whom he woos and eventually marries, forming the center of a growing family.
Through hazardous, hard work and study, Steve becomes a foreman at an Ohio steel plant, and his family grows and prospers. He buys an automobile and is frustrated by its poor performance. He rebuilds it with the help of Howard Clinton, a teacher at his son's high school, but their efforts end in failure when he and Howard are seriously injured in a crash. His eldest son, and Howard’s pupil, George Washington Dangos, dies after enlisting to fight in World War I. Steve fulfills his son's wish that he become an American citizen, and moves to Detroit to sell his design for a safer car to an established auto company, but no company wants to start producing their design, seeing it as a risky investment.
Undaunted, Steve and Howard strike out on their own and found the Danton Motor Car Corporation, gathering capital from friends and relatives. The venture proves to be a great success. Steve’s youngest son, Theodore Roosevelt Dangos, a recent engineering graduate, goes to work for Danton and starts at the bottom, choosing union involvement rather than climbing the executive ladder. With Teddy’s help, the workers organize a lengthy strike for better pay and conditions, and Steve strongly opposes the unionization effort. When a board motion to cooperate with the union is passed despite his resistance, even Howard and Anton back the decision, and Steve retires, resentful of his son and his colleagues.
He embarks on a long-promised Californian honeymoon with Anna, yet his mind remains haunted by the boardroom defeat. News that the company is opening a plane factory in California further unsettles him. But the arrival of World War II reinvigorates him, and he returns to steer the business through a new era of war production. When other leaders doubt Danton's ability to meet warplane quotas, Steve rallies the team with a firm belief that they can meet—and surpass—expectations, as they always have done before.
The film blends documentary footage with the narrative, and closes with the sight of B-17 Flying Fortresses taking shape at a Douglas Aircraft factory, underscoring the resilient spirit of the Dangos family and the industrial era that shapes their lives.
