vitrine · the docent layer

Docent tours

Short curated walks through the evidence. The docent may interpret; the docent may not quote from memory — every figure in the text is bound to its exhibit and carries its tier chip inline. A bare numeral in tour copy fails the build.

The composite family. Each room is a statistical composite, assembled from separate distributions with separate sources. The family at the median income did not also have the median house, the median car, and the median diet. No single family described here ever existed; each fact tells you, in its provenance drawer, which real population it was measured from.

One paycheck

5 stops · cites 2 rooms: 1950s · 2020s

How a single production wage stopped covering the median family — and what moved in to cover the gap instead.

The work that moved

5 stops · cites 13 rooms: 1900s · 1910s · 1920s · 1930s · 1940s · 1950s · 1960s · 1970s · 1980s · 1990s · 2000s · 2010s · 2020s

For most of the century the week's biggest job paid nothing at all. Then the hours fell — and the pay envelope, the appliances, and the second job moved to fill the space.