In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Atlantic City in New Jersey was a booming seaside resort, with the first boardwalk in the United States. Buskers called sand men carved large, detailed scenes in the dunes near the boardwalk and hoped tourists would tip them. Their work, including soldiers, crucifixions, lions, and mermaids, survives mainly in photographs that were sold as postcards. Some sculptures were impressively executed, and the scale was often life-size. The artists included African American sculptors, some of whom worked on segregated beaches, and many of their images were retouched to look white. The city later passed ordinances restricting religious and naked figures, advertising, and required permits. By the early 1940s the craft was declining, and a hurricane in 1944 reshaped the shore and destroyed the displays.

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.