Thursday, February 18, 2016

WPA Posters

Support and encouragement are found in the most unlikely places.
~Raquel Cepeda


Have you heard of Federal Project Number One? I get a little starry-eyed thinking about it, to be honest. Any occasion when a country looks out for its artists gets me googly.

"Federal Project Number One" is the collective name for a group of projects under the New Deal. The Library of Congress says, "For 11 years, between 1933 and 1943, federal tax dollars employed artists, musicians, actors, writers, photographers, and dancers. Never before or since has our government so extensively sponsored the arts." Here are some posters that artists made to support tourism during that time:

By John Buczak, Federal Art Project
United States Library of Congress

By NYC Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, Lake Placid Olympic bobsled run, WPA poster, ca. 1937
Library of Congress, Public Domain

Sea Cliff
Works Progress Administration

By Harry Herzog for the Works Progress Administration
New York City municipal airports, WPA poster, ca. 1937, Public Domain

By Work Projects Administration Poster Collection
Library of Congress

By Work Projects Administration Poster Collection
Library of Congress Catalog

By Work Projects Administration Poster Collection
Library of Congress


4 comments:

Elsa Louise said...

Absolutely lovely. Thank you for bringing them to our attention.

Linda B said...

These are beautiful. So much good came from the projects, & I guess many don't know about them. There is a book that's been collected about the food from communities all across the US that I loved reading. Many respected writers wrote for the WPA too. I didn't know about these Tabatha. Thanks.

HWY said...


Wonderful art deco posters, Tabatha.

I think that the New Deal was great in a lot of ways, and that it doesn't get enough attention for the positive things it did.

And I, too, love the fact that creative people were given the chance to show their stuff!

author amok said...

Tabatha -- These posters made me think of NASA's stylized space tourism campaign, which I love. If you haven't seen it, here is the link: http://www.space.com/31954-nasa-space-travel-posters-gallery.html