After reading the articles "Impoverished College Teaching" and "Boycotting the Ministry" in the April 30, 1921 issue of "Literary Digest" about the underpayment of educators and clergy, Weber, with scenarist Marion Orth, crafted a melodramatic narrative to bring the issue to life in "The Blot". Starring Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern, "The Blot" was her masterpiece, her most successful film from this period and probably Weber's best-known film today. The film "rejects the values of capitalist America that measures the value of people in wealth and property" by depicting the compromises and choices impoverished women are forced to make to achieve social mobility and financial security. It "condemns capitalistic materialism and linked consumerism with sexual exploitation", and addresses class, money, and ethnicity. "Weber's basically Christian ethos shines clearly through this plot: the text disapproves of both the new consumerist immigrant class, and the old aristocratic one". Despite xenophobic assumptions, Weber advocates learning, asceticism, and service to the needy.