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. In between these dramatic ups and downs is a gentle hum of chatter about economic trends, economic competition, and the influence of the economy on international relations or the next election. 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.
 

About this Exhibit

This exhibit surveys the economic imagery produced by Americans between the 1830s and the 1930s. It also tells a story about those images. Broadly, it argues that as Americans approached and entered the twentieth century, they encountered fewer illustrations of a corrupt, chaotic, or moralistic economic universe and, instead, they saw more representations of an orderly, predictable, and self-contained economy. This shift amounted to more than a change in perspective. Visual culture played an active role in producing the elusive – and in many ways imagined – object that came to be called “the economy.” In the graphics that appeared in newspapers, magazines, and political ephemera across this period, economic life became less of a mystery and more of a math problem – a transformation with important implications for personal, political, and ethical decision-making. 

Moving through this exhibit in sequence will tell that story. Visitors are invited to begin in “An Age of Panics,” moving through the galleries that survey art drawn primarily from the nineteenth century, and then to continue into “An Age of Economics,” exploring the rise of graphs and charts from the late nineteenth century up to the 1930s, when the exhibit concludes. Visitors may also jump around from page to page in a sequence of their own choosing, focusing on the aspects of the exhibit that interest them most. 

Visitors should consider the limitations of this exhibit. Like all narratives, this one draws on sources that reflect the views of particular historical figures who had particular interests and concerns when it came to economic life. Visitors are encouraged to ask themselves, Who were these images made by or for? What experiences might have led those individuals to seek explanations for the dramatic swings of the economic world? Whose experiences might not be reflected in these sources? What kinds of sources might we draw on to tell different stories about popular understandings of economic life?