mural by an adult African-American who leans on a split-rail fence and watches the scene, head lifted in poised anticipation. Three sheaves rise up in the landscape behind him. A fourth sheaf appears in the foreground to the right, where a man kneels with a bushel of corn ears, ready to add to the harvest bounty. Finally, a paddle steamer navigates the calm river in the background, another example of how the river is tamed. Mythological tradition The subject matter of Achelous and Hercules derives from a telling of the myth in Thomas Bulfinch's Mythology. As a river god, Achelous normally provides "life-giving irrigation," but takes the form of a destructive bull at floodtime: Hercules' conquest of the river-god was meant to evoke the taking of Missouri waterways by Kansas City pioneers; the horn that Hercules snaps from Achelous' head symbolizes the cornucopia of midwestern agriculture. Deianira, over whom Hercules and Achelous fought, represents fecundity. She is seated on a proleptic cornucopia—the bull's horn has yet to be severed—from which fruits and vegetables spill. The timber in the foreground provides an important natural resource while clearing the land for farming. The Midwest is envisioned as "abundant and fertile and full of promise." "The story is thus applicable to our own land," Benton wrote in a pamphlet distributed at the store where the work was first mounted. "It fits our Missouri River, which yet needs the attention of a Hercules." Social context Achelous and Hercules was painted for display at Harzfeld's department store in Kansas City. The store specialized in ready-to-wear clothing for women, and Benton later acknowledged that it was strange to see his work "in an atmosphere of silk nighties, pink slips and perfume." It was his first mural commission since his historical murals for the Missouri State Capitol ten years before. In light of controversies over that project, Benton sought reassurance that Harzfeld's corporate president, Lester Siegel, would refrain from trying to exercise artistic control. Siegel in turn asked that Benton observe a certain degree of decorum. After the store closed in 1984, its parent company Allied Stores Corporation made a gift of it to the Smithsonian through the institution's Collections Acquisition Program. The painting was among several of its time on the theme of "watery disaster," reflecting a concern with flood and water management that was addressed through public works of the Depression and post-Depression era. The