The Forecasters
Corporate business and the ascent of mathematical economics encouraged Americans to think of the economy as a mechanical entity governed by firm, natural, and internal relationships, between prices and demand or interest rates and growth, for example. Graphs and charts premised on this worldview gradually filled the newspapers and magazines read by Americans interested in commercial life.
Further advancing this understanding of the economy were the rising ranks of financial forecasters – men who promised to use this new knowledge to help investors navigate the ups and downs of economic life. These figures, who grew in visibility and influence in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, were a notably diverse bunch. Some, like Irving Fisher and Wesley Mitchell, were university-trained economists whose research led them into the predictive terrain of index numbers and business cycles. Others, like John Moody and Roger Babson, were entrepreneurs who saw a market for their supposedly expert evaluations of financial trends. Uniting these men was a shared conviction that the economic universe was fundamentally knowable and a belief that that knowledge should be communicated to the public and to policymakers.
Illustration was an essential part of this project, translating complex patterns and processes into readily appreciable models that made the market as easy as reading a thermometer. Forecasters pored over their different options for graphic presentation. Magazine articles outlined the merits and perils of bar graphs, line graphs, and pictographs, while businessmen like Babson and James Brookmire sought to endear to readers their own distinctive representations - the Babsonchart and the Brookmire Barometer. These images did not simply reflect the economic world as it objectively was. Instead, they actively shaped the way individuals understood economic change and the personal and political options they believed were available to control it.
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