The Telephone and the Ticker: Study for 'Electricity as Applied to Commerce'

J. Carroll Beckwith's preparatory drawing for a mural commission at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago depicts a personified female figure of Commerce astride a massive bull, symbolic of market forces. The composition uses geometric grids and architectural notation typical of academic mural design, establishing proportions and scale. Beckwith's pen technique—combining precise cross-hatching with flowing contours—demonstrates the neoclassical allegorical tradition applied to contemporary industrial subjects. This study reveals how late-nineteenth-century institutional art addressed American technological achievement, translating abstract concepts of commerce and electrical innovation into monumental figurative forms for public instruction and civic celebration.