Through EH.Net's Ask the Professor function, I have received the following 
inquiry for a graduate student in political science who is working on 
presidential rhetoric about the economy: 
 
I am working on a project that attempts to explain the different competing 
narratives the American public has relied upon (over the past two centuries) 
to explain the economy/state of economy/prospertiy of the nation. 
Ultimately, I argue that presidential economic stewardship becomes the 
dominant explanatory narrative of the American public in the later half of 
the twentieth century.  I am struggling with the historical narratives and I 
am wondering if anyone has done any work on how lay people 
explained/perceived the economy in the nineteenth century. What stories did 
people use to explain the economy/prosperity and to what actors did they 
attribute responsibility/blame? 
 
Ross B. Emmett