Major Barbara recap

Lady Britomart reunites her children with their estranged father, Andrew Undershaft, a rich weapons manufacturer. His daughter Barbara, a Salvation Army major, hopes to save his soul; he intends to test the material basis of her faith. At Barbara's shelter, the Army needs a large donation and accepts money from a whisky distiller and matching funds from Undershaft. Barbara, believing the mission compromised by wealth derived from harm, gives up her badge in despair. The family then visits Undershaft's armaments works and its prosperous model town, where he argues that decent wages and freedom from poverty create the conditions for morality. Barbara's fiancé, the Greek scholar Adolphus Cusins, qualifies under the firm's tradition that its heir must be a foundling and agrees to succeed Undershaft. Barbara regains her vocation, deciding to bring spiritual purpose to people who are not being converted under pressure of hunger. She and Cusins choose a future at the works.

Lady Britomart tells her son Stephen that the family's finances require action. Her daughters Sarah and Barbara are engaged, her younger son needs support, and their estranged father Andrew Undershaft is immensely wealthy. Undershaft, a weapons manufacturer, has followed a family rule that the business must pass to a foundling rather than to his own son, leaving Stephen without the expected inheritance. Lady Britomart summons her husband to meet the family he scarcely knows. Barbara, now a major in the Salvation Army and engaged to the Greek scholar Adolphus Cusins, confidently invites her father to visit her West Ham shelter. Undershaft agrees on condition that Barbara later visits his armaments works. Their exchange establishes a contest between her promise of salvation and his conviction that money and power determine how people live.

At Barbara's shelter, poverty produces very different responses. Peter Shirley refuses to pretend that unemployment makes him morally defective, while Rummy Mitchens and Snobby Price know how to give charitable workers the conversion stories they expect. Bill Walker arrives in a rage, assaults Rummy and Jenny Hill, and challenges Barbara's attempt to reach his conscience. Undershaft and Cusins observe the mission. When Commissioner Baines explains that the shelter needs five thousand pounds, a whisky distiller offers that sum if another donor matches it; Undershaft supplies the balance. Barbara protests that the Army is accepting wealth rooted in drink and weapons, but the donation is celebrated and the shelter is saved. Concluding that its principles have yielded to money, she removes her badge. Undershaft invites everyone to see the community supported by his factory, while Barbara faces the collapse of her confidence in the shelter's methods.

The family visits Undershaft's armaments works and the prosperous model town attached to it. Its well-paid workers have clean homes, public services, education, and security, complicating the family's assumptions about industrial exploitation. Undershaft argues that poverty is the most immediate evil and that ideals have little force without material power behind them. The firm must still be inherited by a foundling. Cusins discloses that a legal defect in his parents' marriage makes him technically eligible, then negotiates with Undershaft and accepts the succession, hoping to direct the power he inherits. Barbara also finds a new direction. Instead of offering religion to desperate people whose hunger makes their choices suspect, she will work among materially secure people who cannot be bought with bread. She and Cusins commit themselves to life in the factory community, joining Barbara's moral ambition to the worldly power she had tried to reject.

At the model town surrounding Undershaft's armaments works, the family finds good wages, clean housing, schools, and civic amenities, all supported by weapons manufacture. Undershaft argues that security and freedom from poverty must precede moral teaching. Because the business must pass to a foundling rather than a biological heir, Cusins reveals a legal irregularity in his parents' marriage that makes him eligible under the firm's tradition. He bargains with Undershaft over the terms and agrees to become his successor, intending to use the power rather than stand apart from it. Barbara recovers her sense of purpose. She decides that saving people who are materially secure will be a more demanding and honest mission than asking desperate shelter residents to embrace religion in exchange for relief. She and Cusins accept a future in the factory community, while Lady Britomart welcomes the prospect that Barbara will settle there respectably. The conflict between Barbara and her father ends in an alliance, though the moral tension between spiritual conviction and industrial power remains.