"Marsh's paintings are thus part of a larger dialogue about individual and group behavior in the 1930s that took place in the social sciences, in advertising, and in the forms of urban realism that address a concern for the "common man." In his paintings, Marsh uncovered a growing consensus... —that people are irrational and subject to whatever institution gets to them first." http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9k4009m7&chunk.id=d0e4506&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=ucpress