Always the heart and soul of our
country will be the heart and soul of the common man. --Franklin Roosevelt, campaign address,
Cleveland,
Ohio, November 2, 1940
The economic crisis of the 1930s focused
the attention of Americans on the lives and struggles of ordinary
folk. MORE...
Everyday Life
In depicting the course of daily life, New Deal
artists memorialized routine events such as waiting for a
train or watching workers from a city window. MORE...
National Archives, Records of the Work Projects
Administration
(69-AG-410)
The
Riveter By Ben Shahn, Treasury Section of Fine
Arts, 1938
Tempera on paperboard
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution,
transfer from General Services Administration
(77.1.77)
The
Riveter was one of two works submitted by Ben Shahn for
the competition to decorate the Bronx, NY, central postal station.
It takes up 1 of 13 panels on 4 walls of the station. The entire
work, entitled Resources of America, celebrated the skills
of a variety of American industrial and agricultural workers.
Shahn's theme was that human beings and their talents were as
important to preserve as natural resources such as soil and
water. Best known for his depictions of social issues, Ben Shahn
also worked as a photographer for the Resettlement Administration
and Farm Security Administration.
Working
Girls Going Home By Raphael Soyer, New York City Federal
Art Project, WPA, 1937
Lithograph
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National
Archives and Records Administration
(MO 56-323)
Much
of Raphael Soyer's work concentrated on scenes from the everyday
experience of urban living. For inspiration, Soyer turned to
the streets of New York City; for models, he would sometimes
hire the homeless. His work has a sad, sentimental quality that,
in the words of one critic, highlighted "a series of episodes
in the lives of simple, even drab human beings." In Working
Girls Going Home, the viewer is drawn to the women's tired faces,
which are surprisingly similar to one another. Soyer shows them
close up, but their faces reveal few details, and some are in
shadow. This sense of anonymity and sameness is reinforced by
the artist's choice to place the women's covered heads all at
the same height.
El
Station, Sunday Morning
By Jack Markow, New York City Federal Art Project, WPA, ca.
1935-39
Lithograph
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National
Archives and Records Administration
(MO 56-271)
By the 1930s and 1940s, the "El"
-- short for elevated railway -- was a common means of intraurban
transportation. Several New Deal artists used "El stations"
as the setting for their prints, paintings, or photographs.
Jack Markow's lithograph captures the quiet solitude of an almost
deserted Sunday morning rail platform at one of these stations,
which appears to be situated in a working-class section of the
city.
In
the Dugout
By Paul Clemens, Wisconsin Federal Art Project, WPA, 1938
Oil on masonite
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, National
Archives and Records Administration
(MO 56-330)
Waiting
for the Mail By Grant Wright Christian, Treasury Relief
Art Project, 1937 38
Oil on canvas
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution, transfer from General Services Administration
Processing, delivering, and receiving
the mail were common themes in New Deal murals. Many depicted
advances in technology such as the development of air mail or
memorialized major turning points in postal history. In Waiting
for the Mail, the subject of a mural for the Nappanee, IN,
Post Office, Grant Wright Christian chose instead to depict
a familiar and private moment: a women waiting anxiously for
a letter. A critique by a Treasury Relief Art Project advisory
panel suggested adding the figure of a dog with an "eager expression"
to relieve "the large area of fence [that] might prove monotonous."
In the final mural, Christian also changed the dog's breed to
a collie.
