Arts and ChartsMain MenuIntroductionAn Age of PanicsNineteenth Century TrackAn Age of EconomicsTwentieth Century TrackGalleryCreditsDaniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d
Dr. William Thorp, Temporary National Economic Committee (1938)
12017-09-03T10:36:59-07:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d118621Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Divisionplain2017-09-03T10:36:59-07:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d
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12017-07-20T09:46:24-07:00Conclusion3plain2017-10-07T07:56:42-07:00By the 1930s, numerical and graphical depictions of the economy had largely replaced the expressive imagery of the nineteenth century. To be sure, cartoons and illustrations continued to mediate American encounters with economic change, but their role was less to communicate knowledge than to articulate feelings. The facts of the economy were increasingly shown not through crowd scenes or biblical tableaus but through hard lines charting concrete connections. Consider: What moral lessons did these new images convey? How did they depict economic catastrophe, and how does that compare with the depictions found in nineteenth-century graphics? What kinds of political responses to economic change might these images have supported, and what kinds of responses might they have discouraged?
