Here, Nan Lurie and Ida Y. Abelman each produced complex, nightmarish scenes conveying the oppression and anxieties of the American industrial laborer. Workers in Technological Improvements stand outside a factory door with a “No Help Wanted” sign while powerful machinery disposes of them and their tools. Concerns over emerging technologies still resonate today in debates around artificial intelligence, productivity, and the perceived obsolescence of human workers. In Abelman’s print, steamships transporting goods and immigrant families cross stormy seas. A giant sewing machine weighs down on garment industry sweatshop workers while ghostly headlines call for much-needed reforms in child labor, voting rights, and unionization. At bottom right, a uniform series of white-collar bosses look away.