While Norman Rockwell"s 1949 magazine cover "The New Television Set" suggests both delight and humor to the viewer, in portraying the confusion of middle-class Americans faced with new technological innovations, Edward Hopper"s 1940 oil on canvas work "The Office at Night" and "The Family-Industry and Agriculture" oil of printmaker Harry Sternberg (1939) suggest a much darker version of human beings" collective response to the impersonal nature of modern industrialization and technology. .

             This contrast is due to three major reasons- firstly, Rockwell"s painting deals with human"s use of technology in their leisure time, in contrast to the mechanization of the modern office and of modern farming. Secondly, Rockwell painted his work after the end of World War II, and the advent of much greater American prosperity than had been enjoyed during the time when "The Family-Industry and Agriculture" by Harry Sternberg were created, during the Great Depression and the uncertainty of the early times of America"s entry into World War II, when Hopper created his work of art. Thirdly, Rockwell"s magazine cover was created for commercial purposes. Hopper, although he worked as a commercial illustrator, created his work for private purposes, for his own personal expression as an artist, and Sternberg unapologetically identified himself as a social activist as well as a teacher an a painter. ("A Tribute to Harry Sternberg," The San Diego Museum of Art, 2001).

             Edward Hopper"s large oil on canvas "The Office at Night" (its impressive 22 1/8 x 25 inches, now displayed, rather ironically given the painting"s urban focus at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota) portrays a sterile while office space, filled with a narrow desk, illuminated by overhead light rather than the light from the virtually nonexistent window in the room. The male executive in the "Office at Night" seems to be staring at the muscular calves of his bored female employee-evidently they are or will be 'working late"-enjoying an office romance.