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PLAN GALLERY XC
GALLERY XC

The Index

GDP, the CPI, the unemployment rate. Each is a choice about what counts, made by people, revisable, and used as though it were a thermometer.

Charles Horton Cooley
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
Edward Soja
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
George Herbert Mead
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
LAB2-031 · The Index — Open the drawer
A laminated data-collection form used by Bureau of Labor Statistics field agents to record retail prices monthly at specific store locations, forming the raw input for Consumer Price Index calculations.
LAB2-032 · The Index — What is this thing?
A laminated wooden clipboard with printed survey forms, pencil marks, and routing notes used by Bureau of Labor Statistics field agents to record retail prices weekly, forming the raw data for the Consumer Price Index calculation.
LAB2-033 · The Index — Read the source
A monthly report page from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the Consumer Price Index calculation, revealing how inflation is measured by selecting specific goods, weightings, and geographic samples rather than all prices everywhere.
LAB2-034 · The Index — Map it / time it
A monthly employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the primary federal source for joblessness data. It illustrates how counting rules—who counts as unemployed, which surveys feed the estimate—shape the number itself.
LAB2-035 · The Index — Two sources disagree
Official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index report for June 2022, showing 9.1% year-over-year inflation. Demonstrates how index construction choices—item selection, weighting, substitution methods—embed judgment into a number presented as objective measurement.
LAB2-036 · The Index — State the claim
A representative shopping basket containing the goods and services tracked monthly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate inflation, embodying choices about which purchases represent American household spending.
LAB2-037 · The Index — Take the other side
A representative selection of goods and services—food, housing, transportation, medical care—weighted to reflect typical American household spending, used monthly since 1913 to calculate inflation and anchor monetary policy.
LAB2-038 · The Index — Weigh it
A physical and documentary record of the goods and services tracked monthly by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate inflation, showing which items count, how weights shift, and why the same year looks different depending on what you measure.
LAB2-039 · The Index — Build the answer
Official BLS document announcing methodology changes to CPI weighting and basket composition, exemplifying transparent professional revision of economic measurement tools and the iterative refinement that underpins their continued use.
LAB2-040 · The Index — For the file
A representative selection of goods and services tracked monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to measure inflation, illustrating how economists operationalize the abstract concept of price change into a concrete, revisable instrument.
LAB2-041 · The Index — Go and look
A standardized data-collection form used by Bureau of Labor Statistics price collectors to record retail prices of specific goods monthly, revealing how index construction depends on observer choices about location, timing, and product definition.
LAB2-042 · The Index — Now, today
A contemporary grocery store receipt paired with the Bureau of Labor Statistics' current CPI weighting scheme, showing how identical purchases yield different inflation rates depending on which items are counted and how heavily.
LAB2-043 · The Index — Teach it back
A representative selection of goods and services—food, housing, transportation, medical care—weighted and repriced monthly to track inflation. The basket itself changes; what counts as 'typical' is a choice.
LAB2-044 · The Index — The other place
A Bureau of Labor Statistics regional CPI calculation sheet from 1983 showing how identical commodity baskets produced different inflation rates across U.S. metropolitan areas, revealing the constructed nature of price measurement.
LAB2-045 · The Index — One object, close
A standard price-collection worksheet used by Bureau of Labor Statistics field agents to record retail prices of specific goods at sampled outlets, the physical instrument through which abstract economic measurement enters the world.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
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Galleries
IFire and the Forest IIThe First Surplus IIIWater and Power IVThe Domesticated Animal VThe First Village VIThe Metal That Mattered VIIThe Grain Empire VIIIRoads and Rivers IXThe Silk Corridor XThe Monsoon Bargain XIWhy Rome Thinned XIIThe Classical City XIIIThe Maize Bargain XIVTerrace and Milpa XVThe City in the Lake XVIThe Classic Maya Question XVIIReading the Sky XVIIIA Hemisphere Without Horses XIXThe Heavy Plough XXThe Black Death XXIThe Caravan World XXIIThe Rice Revolution XXIIIWood and the Wall XXIVThe Little Ice Age XXVThe Columbian Exchange XXVIThe Sugar Island XXVIIThe Silver Mountain XXVIIIThe Wind That Made Empires XXIXFur, Fish and Frontier XXXThe First Global City XXXIThe Walking City XXXIICoal and the Clock XXXIIIGoing Up Rural Businesses XXXIVThe Cooled Room The Gerrymander The Income Pyramid XXXVThe New Mills XXXVIThe Company and the Charter XXXVIIThe Meeting Ground XXXVIIIThe Company Town XXXIXThe Town and the Common XLThe Invisible Arrival XLIThe Consumer Revolution XLIIThe Argument in Print XLIIIWho Was the Revolution For? XLIVThe Machine of Compromise XLVThe Grid Goes West XLVIThe Port City XLVIIThe War Itself XLVIIIThe First Party Fight XLIXRemoval LThe Factory Girls LIThe House Divided LIIReconstruction and Its Undoing LIIIThe Chosen Nation LIVThe Tenement and the Terrace LVThe Immigrant Ledger LVIThe Machine and the Ward LVIIWhy Buildings Rise LVIIIThe Reservation and the Allotment LIXThe Federal Blueprint LXThe Arsenal LXIThe Subsidised Suburb LXIIThe Second Great Migration LXIIIThe Movement in the Street LXIVThe Bomb LXVThe Factory Closes LXVIThe Return Downtown LXVIIThe Sunbelt Bargain LXVIIIThe Worked Continent LXIXThe Hero and the Record LXXThe Reform Photograph LXXIThe Great Upheaval LXXIIThe Cotton Engine LXXIIIThe Corps of Discovery LXXIVThe Republican Experiment LXXVWho Counts? LXXVIThe Canal and the Rail LXXVIIThe Edsel LXXVIIIThe Transcontinental LXXIXThe Crash and the Line LXXXThe Census LXXXIThe Tower Again LXXXIIThe Screen and the Square LXXXIIIThe Literary Digest Poll LXXXIVUrban Renewal LXXXVThe Hardening Line LXXXVIThe Population Bomb LXXXVIINew Coke LXXXVIIIGalloping Gertie LXXXIXThe Question XCThe Index ◄ YOU ARE HERE XCIThe Map XCIIThe Poverty Line XCIIIThe Normal XCIVThe Hawthorne Works XCVProhibition XCVIMoving to Opportunity XCVIIThe Obedience Studies XCVIIIThe Minimum Wage Fight XCIXAfter the Towers CThe Sword Rack at the Door CIThe First Light CIIThe Forge of Stars CIIIThe Rocky Ledger CIVThe Goldilocks Band CVThe Moon's Receipt CVIThe Deep Clock CVIIThe Living Spark CVIIIThe Oxygen Revolution CIXThe Drifting Map CXThe Great Dyings CXIThe Mammal's Wager CXIIThe Grasslands Bargain CXIIIThe Fire Keeper CXIVThe Language Leap CXVThe Painted Cave CXVIThe Long Migration CXVIIThe Dog at the Fire CXVIIIThe Ice Corridor CXIXThe Seed Contract CXXThe Village Ledger CXXIThe Writing Debt CXXIIThe City Threshold CXXIIIThe Metal and the Market CXXIVThe Plague Network CXXVThe Ocean Bridge CXXVIThe Silver Circuit CXXVIIThe Machine Threshold CXXVIIIThe Energy Bonanza CXXIXThe Population Curve CXXXThe Telegraph World CXXXIThe Great Acceleration CXXXIIThe Carbon Ledger CXXXIIIThe Information Threshold CXXXIVThe Genome Drawer CXXXVThe Anthropocene Question CXXXVIThe Next Threshold CXXXVIIThe Town Meeting CXXXVIIIThe Common and the Fence CXXXIXThe Sheriff and the Jury CXLThe School Board CXLIThe Charter CXLIIThe Petition CXLIIIThe Property Line CXLIVThe Ballot Box CXLVThe Ward Machine CXLVIThe Suffrage March CXLVIIThe Poll Tax Receipt CXLVIIIThe Recount CXLIXThe King's Two Bodies CLThe Parliament CLIThe Republic's Blueprint CLIIThe Federation Question CLIIIThe One-Party State CLIVThe Referendum CLVMarbury's Desk CLVIThe Fourteenth Amendment CLVIISeparate and Unequal CLVIIIThe Warren Bench CLIXThe Commerce Clause CLXThe Dissent CLXIThe Zoning Map CLXIIThe Boss's Ledger CLXIIIThe Bond Issue CLXIVThe Police Power CLXVThe Annexation Fight CLXVIThe Renewal Bulldozer CLXVIIThe Treaty Table CLXVIIIThe Embassy CLXIXThe Blockade CLXXThe Alliance CLXXIThe Assembly Floor CLXXIIThe Trade War CLXXIIIThe Question-Mark Tracks Emblematic Films — The Decade Panels The Government Lounge Rogues, Ruffians, and Rascals The Processing Hall — The Dairy Wing The Creamery — The Second Wing The Civil Rights Movement 1945–1975 The American Indian The Gallery of Man The Sobering Rooms The Teaching Ward The Pharmacology Cabinet The Pathology Gallery The Epidemiology Map Room
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