April Read: Posters For The People

Artist: Richard Floethe
Library of Congress

Posters for the People: Art of the WPA
Ennis Carter; Foreword by Christopher DeNoon [2008]

During the WPA, varied programs promoted a level of civic engagement that's unimaginable now. Among the Federal Art Project [FAP] efforts at putting unemployed artists to work, it seems the poster studios left us the most memorable work.

In his foreword to this book, Christopher DeNoon writes of researching WPA posters in the 1980's—finding few examples and little information, until being led to the Library of Congress and George Mason University archives.

Since then, the LOC has made posters available online, at By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943. DeNoon notes that these approximately 900 designs are only a fraction of over 35,000 posters designed and two million printed during the WPA years.

The largest printed collection to date, Ennis Carter's book includes about 500 designs, from LOC as well as other institutional and private collections. A companion site, Posters for the People, features many of the book's posters. The site is working to increase the total number of posters archived, and to serve as "the WPA Living Archive."

There's so much wonderful stuff here, in design or historical interest—and very often, both.

Posters publicized diverse New Deal programs at the local level. Subjects included

Civic improvement: Help Your Neighborhood By Keeping Your Premises Clean
Health: Make Your Health Points Get Your [TB] Test Now
Nutrition: Eat Fruit Be Healthy
Child rearing: No Creature In This World So Ignorantly Nurtured As The Average Baby
Education, including classes to give adults A Road To Future Success.
Reading, and use of the library—"an American institution."

It's a sign of the times that labor activism could be taken as a point of reference:

Library of Congress
Artist: Erick Hans Krause

As history, the posters show a range of what our institutions were once willing to tackle.

Planned housing was offered as a solution to social ills:
Infant mortality - as in this and this;
Juvenile delinquency;
And crime.

While it may have been a matter of individual artist sensitivity, it seems that some representations of African-Americans are much more respectful than was usual for the period.

Library of Congress
Artist: Richard Hall

Although this from the WPA Living Archive may just have been a color scheme decision, it does seem to portray a non-white family, in an unusually non-caricatured manner—

There are also posters for exhibitions of Indian art, designed by non-Indians, but featuring Native artwork. Among several posters for the "Indian Court" exhibit are Pueblo Turtle Dancers, and Buffalo Hunt.

Cheerful designs promoted community events of all sorts:

Father-and-Son Banquet
Amateur Contest for Children
Barbershop Quartet Concert

Activities for girls --

--and boys.

Both posters above: Library of Congress
Artist: Beard [full name unknown]

Of course, gender roles would (briefly) become more flexible in a few years, and federally-funded art would become centered on wartime themes.

Boston Public Library

But at the height of the FAP—with fine artists on payroll in various units—posters promoted art exhibits, and the Project established an annual Buy American Art Week.

Another design: National Art Week American - Art For American Homes.

A 1941 version is National Art Week - Buy American – Give American – Own American.

There's an impressive range of cultural events aimed at varied tastes—performed by troupes prominently labeled "Federal"—

Library of Congress

George Mason University Libraries

Despite furors over leftish plays, there is poster after poster for offerings of
domestic farce;
vaudeville;
puppet shows;
and ... puppet vaudeville.

Some plays would seem to have been unobjectionably patriotic, like "Created Equal - A Dramatic Chronicle Based Upon The Constitution."

On the other hand, considering how much they need to stifle information they don't control, the "Economic Royalists" were outraged by any and all New Deal messages to the masses.

This play seems to have been a hit, with productions around the country.

Library of Congress

One that was too likely to give the rabble ideas? Actually, it was an adaptation of a Viennese farce; a 1937 Harvard Crimson review is here.

But even roller-skating beavers appear to have been eager for change.

George Mason University Libraries

I would love to have seen marionette robots in action.

Library of Congress
Artist: Charles Verschuuren

Some mysterious performances are survived only by an image in the WPA Living Archive.

Carter quotes Richard Floethe, who directed the poster studio in New York: "The Government unwittingly launched a movement to improve the commercial poster and raise it to a true art form."

There are wonderful designs, often from artists who seem to have left no other public record of their work. Among these are Arlington Gregg, who created wittily stylized designs for the Illinois FAP. Some examples are here, here, and here.

Dorothy Waugh produced striking posters for the National Parks, a number of which are in the book but not online. The Boston Public Library has examples here and here. Under the heading, "Vintage National Parks Poster," this Western art dealer shows a Waugh poster and includes a biographical sketch on the artist.

WPA posters promoted Free Art Instruction; Free Grand Opera; and Free-Free-Free Federal Theatre.

It couldn't have lasted. As useful as a revival might be, given our current depression of indefinite duration, it won't happen.

At least we have a reminder of past national achievements in this beautiful volume...

... Printed in Singapore.