Most of us sense that our lives are entwined with something called “the economy.” When business is bustling and we can afford things we need and want, we feel like the economy is good. When our hours are cut back, we lose or jobs, the stock market tanks, or companies close down, we sense that the economy is bad. But what is the economy? How does it work? Who runs it? What can we do to manage its influence on our personal and professional lives?
 
This exhibit explores how Americans answered these questions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – a period marked by the rise of industrial cities, the expansion of international markets, and the growing power of high finance. It focuses specifically on the visual imagery Americans created to illustrate what was happening in the economic realm and on the meanings and messages such representations conveyed. Examining these artifacts illuminates real changes that took place in the economy during this formative period. It also tells us about how ordinary people understood those changes and the role they imagined they had in shaping them.