The qipao, also called the cheongsam, is a figure-fitting one-piece dress with a standing collar, a side-slit skirt and frog fasteners on the collar. Its name means banner gown, after the qizhuang, the clothing of the Manchu people. It was developed in the 1910s and 1920s and reshaped by Western-influenced tailoring. It became especially popular in China from the 1920s to the 1960s, and was popularised by socialites and high-society women in Shanghai. The dress blends Manchu ancestry with modern design, which is why it is often seen as an emblem of the Republican era.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.