Rediscovering the Peoples Art '

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Rediscovering the Peoples Art ' Rediscovering the Peoples’ Art New Deal Murals in Pennsylvania’s Post Offices David Lembeck with photographs by Michael Mutmansky U.S. Post Office Building, Selins- grove: Adorned by George War- ren Rickey’s tempera on canvas, Susquehanna Trail, since 1937. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MUTMANSKY 28 PENNSYLVANIA HERITAGE Summer 2008 www.paheritage.org n a February morning in 1937, artist George tion discouraged by the Great Depression. In December 1933, Warren Rickey (1907–2002) and a group of four a pilot program, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), O men met at the post office in Selinsgrove, Snyder was created as a New Deal initiative. Although lasting just County. Armed with cloth-covered rolling pins, the men six months, PWAP employed thousands of artists to produce attached Rickey’s mural entitled Susquehanna Trail to one of works for public buildings. On the basis of this early success, the lobby’s end walls. After six hours, they transformed the project administrators created a unit within the Treasury entire blank white wall, from marble wainscoting to ceiling, Department, the Section of Fine Art, known simply as “the into a glorious depiction of a spring day in a nearby valley. Section.” Beginning in 1934, the Section sponsored competi- Two farmers, one planting and one plowing, dominate the tions for commissions in large buildings open to all artists in foreground. Behind them are the farmer’s family, another the United States. Runners-up were awarded commissions for farmer on a discing machine, and several buildings, includ- smaller post offices. ing Shriner’s Church, a local landmark. Rickey’s colors are Section administrators enthusiastically supported Ameri- pure central Pennsylvania: verdant green and chocolate can artists and fostered unique American art. Tapped for the brown fields, rich red soil, and the majestic blue Susquehan- position of Section director, Edward Bruce (1879–1943), a na River in the distance. The mural is practically an illustra- successful businessman and lawyer, had become an accom- tion for “America the Beautiful,” with its spacious skies and plished landscape painter in mid-life. Publicist Forbes Watson purple mountains, and farmers preparing for future amber had been one of the most influential art critics in the coun- waves of grain. try. Assistant director Edward Rowan (1898–1946), a friend A mural in a post office was certainly an unusual oc- to Grant Wood (1891–1942), creator of the cultural icon currence—especially one featuring hardworking, ordinary American Gothic, greatly admired the work of the Midwestern citizens—but it was becoming more common during the Regionalist artists. As a local historian and amateur architect, Great Depression. Artworks celebrating local industry and President Roosevelt was concerned that the vernacular archi- history were suddenly appearing in post office lobbies tecture of New York’s Hudson River Valley was disappearing. throughout the country; between 1934 and 1943, more than He saw to it that the valley’s colorful heritage was preserved twelve hundred original works of art were installed in post in the post office at Hyde Park and five others, each based on offices nationwide. Pennsylvania received eighty-eight of a specific Dutch Colonial building chosen by him and built these, second in number only to New York. As part of the ef- with reclaimed fieldstone. Roosevelt also helped select the fort to stimulate the economy and provide work for millions artists and themes for the six Hudson River Valley murals. of unemployed Americans, the administration of President In many parts of the country, post office murals gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt embarked on massive public residents their first encounter with an original work of art. works programs during the Great Depression. Thousands Pennsylvanians, however, had enjoyed a rich history of art of projects—courthouses, customs houses, bridges, dams, some two hundred years before the Treasury Department’s and post offices—were constructed during Roosevelt’s New programs began. Some of the most enduring images of the Deal. When funds were available, the U.S. Department of the Commonwealth’s history—William Penn’s treaty with the Treasury, which was responsible for the design and construc- Indians, George Washington crossing the Delaware River, tion of government buildings, also commissioned appropri- and the delegates signing of the United States Constitution ate works of art with which to decorate their public spaces, in Philadelphia—were created by artists who had lived or usually lobbies. worked in Pennsylvania. Edward Redfield (1869–1965), Fern It was Philadelphia artist George Biddle (1885–1973) who Coppedge (1883–1951), and like-minded artists settled in suggested the idea of commissioning artists to decorate fed- the artist colony at New Hope and became known as the eral buildings. On May 9, 1933, Biddle wrote to FDR, friend Pennsylvania Impressionists. They captured the daily life and former Groton School classmate, who had been inaugu- and landscapes of surrounding Bucks County. A group of rated the nation’s thirty-second president on March 4. Pittsburgh landscape painters founded by George Hetzel There is a matter which I have long considered and which some (1826–1899), known as the Scalp Level School, worked in the day might interest your administration. The younger artists of mountains near Johnstown in the late nineteenth century. America are conscious as they have never been of the social revolu- Folk artists such as Edward Hicks (1780–1849) created charm- tion that our country and civilization are going through; and they ing farmstead portraits of barns, fields, and livestock of nine- would be eager to express these ideals in a permanent art form teenth-century Pennsylvania. Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), if they were given the government’s co-operation. They would be considered by many to be America’s greatest painter, was an contributing to and expressing in living monuments the social ide- instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in als that you are struggling to achieve. And I am convinced that our Philadelphia where he exhorted his students to “study their mural art with a little impetus can soon result, for the first time in own country and to portray its life and types.” At the turn of our history, in a vital national expression. the twentieth century, John Sloan (1871–1951), George Luks Mexican artists Diego Rivera (1886–1957), José Clemente (1867–1933), William Glackens (1870–1938), and Everett Orozco (1883–1949), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) Shinn (1876–1953), who worked as illustrators for the Phila- fueled Biddle’s enthusiasm. Their bold, colorful murals, delphia Press, found fame for their stark scenes of urban life mixing images of indigenous cultures and the iconography known as the Ashcan School. In the 1920s and 1930s, artists of Marxism, transformed the walls of government buildings Charles Sheeler (1883–1965), Charles Demuth (1883–1935), into a celebration of the Mexican Revolution and its ideals. and Elsie Driggs (1898–1992) painted iconic subjects, among Roosevelt, however, had no use for Marxist propaganda. His them Bucks County barns, Lancaster’s commercial architec- New Deal agenda sought to reform capitalism, not dismantle ture, and Pittsburgh’s industrial buildings, in a hard-edged, it. Like Biddle, he understood that public art could be used to geometrical style known as Precisionism. These artists in- communicate civic values and uplift and ennoble a popula- spired those who later created the post office murals. www.phmc.state.pa.us PENNSYLVANIA HERITAGE Summer 2008 29 PHOTO BY MICHAEL MUTMANSKY Farm scenes were quite common in Pennsylvania art in the 1930s and 1940s. Farming was a family enterprise, and works U.S. Post Office Building, Muncy: John W. Beauchamp’sRachel of art of the period often show multi-generational families Silverthorne’s Ride (1938) depicts a local heroine warning of an imminent British-allied Indian attack in 1778. raising a variety of crops and livestock. A typical farm family could provide for nearly all of its food needs and these images of abundance were popular with non-farmers as well. Pennsylvanians commemorated on post office walls In addition to its rich, expansive farmland, the most include General “Mad Anthony” Wayne, military hero and important of Pennsylvania’s abundant resources were iron statesman; Albert Gallatin, diplomat and the longest-serv- ore and the anthracite and bituminous coal that fueled ing treasury secretary; and Joseph Priestley, scientist and the steel-making and railroad industries, providing artists colleague of Benjamin Franklin, whose American home at with a wealth of subject matter. Some commissions depict Northumberland, Northumberland County, is adminis- these workers as heroic figures, overcoming the hardships tered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Com- of working underground or handling molten metals. Others mission (PHMC) as a popular attraction on the Pennsylva- TM depict the massive structures which housed those industries, nia Trails of History . the monumental mills of the steel industry, and the coal Nearly all the personalities celebrated in these public breakers towering above the mine shafts. Other important artworks were Caucasian males. Women appear in the ma- activities celebrated in post office art include glassmaking in jority of murals, but rarely as heroic figures. An interesting western Pennsylvania, lumbering in the northern tier, and exception is the mural in the post office in Muncy, Lycom- the cement, textile, and transportation industries through- ing County. Rachel Silverthorne’s Ride by John W. Beau- out the Commonwealth. Most of these major industries champ (1906–1957) celebrates a local heroine who warned declined after World War II and have virtually disappeared settlers of an imminent attack of British-allied Native and, in several cases, post office art is the only vi- Americans in 1778. Unlike most of the works, which depict sual reminder of a vanished industrial heritage.
Recommended publications
  • Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II
    Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II: The Art of Making Friends Darlene J. Sadlier, Indiana University, USA In August 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Nelson A. Rockefeller to head the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), a new federal agency whose main objective was to strengthen cultural and commercial relations between the U.S and Latin America, in particular Brazil, in order to route Axis influence and secure hemispheric solidarity. On November 7, 1940, just months after the CIAA‘s inception, Robert G. Caldwell and Wallace K. Harrison, Chairman and Director, respectively, of the agency‘s Cultural Relations Division, received written approval for twenty-six special projects at a cost of nearly one-half million dollars.i The most expensive, at $150,000, was an Inter-American exhibit of art and culture under the direction of the MoMA, to be held simultaneously with parallel exhibits in capital cities throughout the Americas.ii Two hundred fifty-five U.S. paintings were curated by the MoMA in conjunction with other major museums, and in April 1941, these were previewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Portions of the large exhibit then toured eight South American republics, Mexico and Cuba for close to a year, beginning with an exposition at Mexico City‘s Palacio de Bellas Artes in June.iii The emphasis was on modern art and included paintings by Georgia O‘Keefe, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Loren MacIver, Eugene Speicher, Peter Hurd and Robert Henri, among others. A file in the MoMA archive has valuations of all the paintings at the time, the highest valued being George Bellows‘s Dempsey and Firpo and Georgia O‘Keefe‘s The White Flower at $25,000 each.
    [Show full text]
  • Corey Allikas Painting the War: Artistic Depictions of World War II in Europe, 1939-1945 HIST
    Corey Allikas Painting the War: Artistic Depictions of World War II in Europe, 1939-1945 HIST 395 - Fall Semester (Galgano) World War II shaped the twentieth century, as its events and aftermath affected the entire globe. The attitudes and actions of the nations' populations determined how the war played out, and the thing that most shaped these peoples' actions was war art. War art in World War II had two important goals: mobilization of citizens and creation of accurate depictions of the battlefield. War art's intended audience was foremost the citizens, as their support for the war was crucial to success. Dependence on civilian support - both through labor and service - was much greater in World War II than in any other previous war. Many participating nations in WWII developed war art programs, with the goal of showing the warfront to garner civilian support back home. Artists ranged from active-duty soldiers, like in the United States, to civilians following troops on tours, like Great Britain. These hired artists were given specific subjects to depict, depending on where they were stationed; the first hand account ensured the most accurate depictions possible. However, the disparity between the actual war fronts and the artists' depictions was present in all major art programs. This paper looks at the war art from the major powers in World War II: Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. It examines the styles adopted by artists in these nations, the subjects artists depicted, and the war art's purpose in society. Germany, to anchor their claim of "supreme race", used traditional art forms similar to the Roman Empire.
    [Show full text]
  • A Native Charlestonian, Alice Smith Used Her Art to Bring Attention to the Beauty and Heritage of Charleston and the Surrounding Lowcountry Region
    Fig. 1: Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (1876–1958), Cattle in the Broom Grass, An Autumn Evening, from the series A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties, ca. 1935. Watercolor on paper, 18 x 13 inches. Image courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art/ Carolina Art Association. 1937.009.0008. A native Charlestonian, Alice Smith used her art to bring attention to the beauty and heritage of Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry region. In addition to studio practice, Smith was active at the Gibbes Museum of Art, where she organized exhibi- tions of her own work as well as the work of others. Cattle in the Broom Grass is part of a series of thirty original watercolors Smith created for A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties, published in 1936. 302 www.antiquesandfineart.com 11th Anniversary OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES visiting artists in charleston by pamela wall and sara arnold harleston, South Carolina, has long been a destination for those seeking warm C weather, picturesque landscapes, and the charm of a historic city. Artists are no exception to the rule, and a number of well-known names have visited the city and translated their experiences into works of art. Included among this group are such twentieth- century masters as Edward Hopper, Childe Hassam, George Biddle, and photographer Walker Evans. Between the years 1910 to 1945, in particular, Charleston flourished as a Mecca for art- ists, a period described today as the Charleston Renaissance. The Charleston Renaissance was largely the result of a small community of resident artists who discovered in Charleston’s timeworn alleyways and weathered facades a visual beauty that spoke of its extraordinary architectural and cultural past.
    [Show full text]
  • This Page Was Intentionally Removed Due to a Research Restriction on All Corcoran Gallery of Art Development and Membership Records
    This page was intentionally removed due to a research restriction on all Corcoran Gallery of Art Development and Membership records. Please contact the Public Services and Instruction Librarian with any questions. AGENDA - ANNUAL MEETING - JANUARY 27, 1958 (continued) 25. Consideration of changes in Membership fees and privileges (2), a. Authorization of a subscription concert by Johanna Martzy. 26. Election of Mary Lay Thom as a FELLOW. 27. Election of George Biddle as a FELLOW. 28. Election of James Russell Wiggins as a FELLOW. 29. Report of the Committee on Works of Art and The Art School. 30. Resolutions pertaining thereto: a. Authorization of future special exhibitions, b« Authorization of a long term cooperative arrangement with The Toledo Museum of Art on the Biennial Exhibitions. c. Authorization to charge 25$ admission to Living Today exhibition. d. Resolution of thanks to the Honorable and Mrs, Russell E, Train for the gift of Still Life by William Merritt Chase, e. Resolution of thanks to the Honorable Francis Biddle for the gift of Circus Rider by Charles Demuth. f. Resolution of thanks to Caroline Ogden Jones Peter III for the offer of the unrestricted gift of a group of bronzes, and a paint¬ ing by Walter Griffin. g. Resolution authorizing an exhibition for the benefit of the Works of Art Purchase Fund by Nildenstein Gallery, New York. 31. Report on tentative proposal concerning The Textile Museum of the District of Columbia. 32. Report on the status of the proposal to the Junior League of Washington re- specting a Junior Museum. 33. Report changes in Fine Arts Insurance Policy coverage.
    [Show full text]
  • Down from the Ivory Tower: American Artists During the Depression
    W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1982 Down from the ivory tower: American artists during the Depression Susan M. Eltscher College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Eltscher, Susan M., "Down from the ivory tower: American artists during the Depression" (1982). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625189. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-a5rw-c429 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DOWN FROM THE IVORY TOWER: , 4 ‘ AMERICAN ARTISTS DURING THE DEPRESSION A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Susan M. Eltscher APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts ^jiuu>0ur> H i- fc- bbcJ^U i Author Approved, December 1982 Richard B. Sherman t/QOJUK^r Cam Walker ~~V> Q ' " 9"' Philip J/ Fuiyigiello J DEDICATION / ( \ This work is dedicated, with love and appreciation, to Louis R. Eltscher III, Carolyn S. Eltscher, and Judith R. Eltscher. ( TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACRONYMS................... .......................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........................................
    [Show full text]
  • EXHIBITION of AMERICAN ART LEAVES for PARIS April
    38418 - 17 THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART F0R 14 WEST 49TH STREET, NEW YORK IMMEDIATE RELEASE TELEPHONE: CIRCLE 7-MKE TO EDITORS OUTSIDE NEW YORK CITY: Artists and lenders of paintings and sculptures here listed are natives or residents in various cities and towns throughout the country. Localities are given in every instance. Today, April 20, the large Exhibition of American Art 1609-1938, which the Museum of Modern Art has assembled for Paris,, will leave New York for France on the S.S. Lafayette. More than one thousand items are included in the exhibition which will be held at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, from May 24 to July 13. For more than a year, at the invitation of the French Government, the Museum has been assembling the exhibition. The largest section includes approximately 200 oils and watercolors, 40 sculptures, and 80 prints, the work of artists in all parts of the United States during the past three centuries. The exhibits shown in this section have been selected by Mr. A. Conger Goodyear, President of the Museum, assisted by Mr. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Director, and Miss Dorothy C. Miller, Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture. Mr. Barr is sailing this week to supervise the in­ stallation of the exhibition in Paris. The following pieces of sculpture and contemporary paintings will be shown in the exhibition: CONTEMPORARY PAINTINGS: GIFFORD BEAL, b. 1879, New York. Lives in New York. "Horse Tent" (1937) Lent by the Artist GEORGE WESLEY BELLOWS, b. 1882, Columbus, Ohio; d. 1925 "Stag at Sharkey's" (1909) Lent by the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio .
    [Show full text]
  • Harn Museum Modern Collection
    Modern Collection American, European and Latin American art The Harn Museum’s modern collection includes nearly 1,000 works spanning from the mid-19th century through the first half of the 20th century. The collection is divided into three geographically defined sub- collections: American art, European art and Latin American art. American art is further divided into three genre categories: painting, sculpture, and prints and drawings. A major strength of the modern collection is its representation of American art from the 1910s through the 1940s. Areas of special importance include landscapes, urban themes, social realist themes and Works Progress Administration prints. These works represent many significant movements in American art such as Impressionism, early Modernism, Cubism, Geometric Abstraction, Regionalism, and Urban and Social Realism. The core of the collection was established in the early 1990s through a major gift from William H. and Eloise R. Chandler of more than 50 paintings by well-known American artists such as George Bellows, John Steuart Curry, Philip Evergood, Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, Jack Levine, John Marin and John Sloan. During the last decade, the Harn has significantly added to the quality and depth of these holdings through purchases and generous gifts. These important contributions have continued to shape the museum’s representation of modern art in new and exciting directions. American paintings from the 19th century include fine examples by William Morris Hunt, Herman Herzog, William Aiken Walker and J. Alden Weir. Major movements of American art in the first half of the 20th century represented in the collection include Impressionism by artists such as Childe Hassam and Theodore Robinson; Post-Impressionism by Maurice Prendergast; and early Modernism and Abstraction by Milton Avery, Francis Criss, Preston Dickinson, Werner Drewes, Lyonel Feininger, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Albert Gallatin, Raymond Jonson, John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ben Shahn and Joseph Stella.
    [Show full text]
  • B & L Rootenberg
    B & L ROOTENBERG - Fine & Rare Books Post Office Box 5049 B Sherman Oaks, California 91403 Telephone: [818] 788-7765 Telefax: [818] 788-8839 [email protected] www.rootenbergbooks.com A SELECTION OF BOOKS EXHIBITED AT THE INTERNATIONAL ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR BOSTON, NOVEMBER 13 -15, 2015 Full collations, descriptions, and bibliographical details are available for all items listed BOOTH NO. 320 PRESENTATION FROM WILLIAM THOMSON, LORD KELVIN 1. AIRY, George Biddle. Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. Scientific Department. Trigonometry. On the figure of the earth. Tides and Waves. [London]: [n.p., ca. 1845]. 4to. With 11 plates. Contemporary polished calf. Bookplate of the University of Glasgow. First book edition of Airy’s contributions to the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. The first work covers basic, plane, and spherical trigonometry, as well as more advanced work on geodetic operations and construction of trigonometrical tables. The second article, one of his most famous papers, describes various methods of measurement, treats pendulums, and discusses the determination of the earth’s mean density. The final work reveals the various theories and explanations of tides, details experiments related to waves, and concludes with a “desiderata in the theory and observations of tides.” $ 750.00 EDITION PRINCEPS, HEAVILY ANNOTATED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND 2. ALFONSO X. Tabulae astronomicae. [Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 4 July 1483]. 4to. Gothic type. Printed in red and black, rubricated initials in green, yellow, red and black, 2 large woodcuts (partially colored by hand). Elaborate blindstamped calf in a contemporary style. Annotated throughout. Edition Princeps of the Alfonsine Tables, which remained in general use until Kepler’s Tabulae Rudolphinae. This great achievement was based on the Ptolemaic planetary system for explaining celestial motion.
    [Show full text]
  • George Biddle Papers
    George Biddle Papers A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress Prepared by Grover Batts and Thelma Queen Revised and expanded by Nan Thompson Ernst Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 2009 Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2009 Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms009145 Collection Summary Title: George Biddle Papers Span Dates: 1863-1973 Bulk Dates: (bulk 1916-1973) ID No.: MSS12674 Creator: Biddle, George, 1885-1973 Extent: 3,500 items; 31 containers plus 1 oversize; 12 linear feet Language: Collection material in English with French, Italian, Portugese, and Spanish Repository: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Abstract: Artist and public official. Correspondence; diaries; drafts and printed copies of speeches, articles, and a memoir; sketchbooks; scrapbooks; announcements; book reviews; and other papers relating chiefly to Biddle's role in American art, his work for the federal support of art, and the Federal Art Project, including also material relating to his involvment with the United States War Department Art Advisory Committee, World War II, and the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. Selected Search Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein. Personal Names Aiken, Conrad, 1889-1973--Correspondence. Benton, Thomas Hart, 1889-1975--Correspondence. Berenson, Bernard, 1865-1959--Correspondence. Biddle, Francis, 1886-1968--Correspondence.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhibit Review
    EXHIBIT REVIEW A Common Canvas: Pennsylvania’s New Deal Post Office Murals. The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA, November 22, 2008–May 17, 2009. Curated by DAVID LEMBECK and CURTIS MINER. N THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION, the Roosevelt adminis- tration initiated an ambitious and unprecedented public art program, Iindicating a major shift in the U.S. government’s traditional relation- ship to artists, art, and cultural production. Between 1933 and 1943, the federal government hired or commissioned over ten thousand artists to produce literally hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, murals, posters, models, and stage sets—all manner of visual material—for the edification and education of the American public. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” encompassed several art initiatives. The largest and best known is the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, which provided employment for artists already on govern- ment relief. A less well-known, but longer-lived, project was the Section of Fine Arts of the U.S. Treasury Department (known as “the Section”), which commissioned artwork for installation in new federal buildings. In the nine years of its existence, the Section awarded fourteen hundred commissions, many for the decoration of the eleven hundred new post offices that were being constructed in cities and towns—from the largest urban centers to the smallest and most remote hamlets—throughout the country. The exhibition A Common Canvas: Pennsylvania’s New Deal Post Office Murals opened in November 2008 to commemorate the seventy- fifth anniversary of the New Deal.1 It celebrated an especially rich strand in the history of this “golden age” of public visual culture—the art created for post office buildings in the state of Pennsylvania, which, with eighty- 1 The exhibit is intended to travel, though venues and dates have yet to be confirmed.
    [Show full text]
  • NPS Form 10 900 OMB No. 1024 0018
    NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. See instructions in National Register Bulletin, How to Complete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions. Place additional certification comments, entries, and narrative items on continuation sheets if needed (NPS Form 10-900a). 1. Name of Property historic name Englewood Post Office other names/site number 5AH.269 2. Location street & number 3332 South Broadway n/a not for publication n/a city or town Englewood vicinity state code county code zip code Colorado CO Arapahoe 005 80110 3. State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this X nomination _ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property X_ meets _ does not meet the National Register Criteria. I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following level(s) of significance: X national statewide X local Signature of certifying official/Title Date State or Federal agency/bureau or Tribal Government In my opinion, the property X meets does not meet the National Register criteria.
    [Show full text]
  • 31762100604022.Pdf (2.732Mb)
    Made in Montana : Montanas post office murals by Elizabeth Joan Mentzer A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Montana State University © Copyright by Elizabeth Joan Mentzer (1989) Abstract: In the decade between 1933 and 1943, the government organized and managed a series of federally subsidized art programs. These projects lasted varying lengths of time and targeted different artists. The Federal Art Project, which was the better known program, aimed its efforts towards artists on relief. A simultaneous program managed by the Treasury Department aided artists not on relief, and commissioned the post office murals found throughout Montana. Montana's murals materialized in a four year span and can still be found in the post office or federal building for which these designs were commissioned. Besides its willingness to assist artists, the government also wanted to give art to the common people, to make them aware of and give them an appreciation for art. To achieve this, the government stressed that the artists should paint American scenes. Accordingly, Montana's moralists relied on the locale of the town where his/her mural was to be placed. In addition, they usually recorded an event from the town's heritage with their brushes. These two factors gave a measure of authenticity to their designs. In its efforts to share art with the masses, the government involved them in the process. Local juries selected the design they preferred for their post office but initial enthusiasm gave way to indifference as the murals, intended to cushion the blows of the Depression became unpleasant reminders of the Depression's existence.
    [Show full text]