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• 1 2017-07-12T09:18:28-07:00 Early Corporate Charts 11 Version 1 gallery 2017-07-13T06:53:58-07:00 As corporations became larger and more complicated after the Civil War, new ways of seeing them became necessary. Some firms, like the Erie Railroad Corporation, had dabbled in images to explain the organization of their firms, and as their tree-like plan illustrates, could be creative and even artistic in their representations. But as demand grew, charts depicting corporate organization became more standardized. As the images from postbellum decades show, corporate charts became more linear, directional, and internally-focused than earlier attempts. They were designed to explain to the many members of an individual firm, who no longer necessarily knew each other personally, what the other parts of the company were doing, and where their own department fit in the chain of production. They presented the modern corporation as a machine, with its interlocking parts constantly in motion.