POSTERS
FOR THE PEOPLE

I remember the first time I learned about WPA posters. It was the 1980s and I was a community organizer in search of effective and inspiring ways to call attention to important social issues. When I ran across Chris DeNoon’s book Posters of the WPA, I was surprised to learn that during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. government had sponsored a work program that valued artists enough to employ hundreds of them to make posters. I was amazed that the government focused such effort on promoting a social agenda and that creativity and art were recognized as a vital means of capturing the public’s attention and calling citizens to action.

But it was the posters themselves that spoke to me. Their incredible beauty and meaning are inspiring. Their high-quality craftsmanship makes each one special and extremely powerful. These posters were clearly more than mere promotional pieces. What impressed me most was the remarkably effective combination of striking visuals and strong messages, which together portray such a hopeful and positive view of America.

Unfortunately, most of these posters met the sad fate that often befalls ephemera. Like other promotional material, they were taken down, thrown away, forgotten. Not surprisingly, the federal government kept no record of the WPA artists’ wide-ranging production. Although several hundred posters are collectively documented and stored in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the majority remain uncatalogued and are scattered in a handful of private and public collections throughout the United States.

I believe that the story of these captivating posters deserves to be protected and celebrated and that the remaining examples should once again be brought to light.

As artifacts, the posters serve as an important snapshot of a moment in our nation’s social, cultural, and art history. Their creation played a key role not only in promoting the hopes and aspirations of a government but also in advancing American poster design and printing techniques.

What I find more interesting, though, is how relevant the posters are today. The issues and problems they highlight continue to confront Americans, even in the twenty-first century. The solutions they portray—steeped in inclusive, positive values—resonate as ways to address our many challenges, from poverty to health to protection of the environment. These posters may be simple and may not represent the total solution, but they emphasize a belief that social problems can and should be overcome—a timeless and important idea.

The record of the WPA posters is a meaningful one. It is a fascinating journey, from the complex goals and objectives of the New Deal programs of the Great Depression to a collection of posters that continues to engage, entertain, and inspire, even today.

PUTTING ARTISTS TO WORK FOR AMERICA

During the 1930s, the United States was in crisis and nearly one-third of the country’s workforce was unemployed. In an effort to rebuild the nation, boost the economy, and enhance community life, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a series of programs in 1933 called the New Deal. The largest agency of this reform program, the Works Progress Administration (named the Works Projects Administration), existed from 1935 to 1943 and employed millions of jobless workers in an ambitious campaign to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure through a network of highways, bridges, and large-scale civic projects such as dams, parks, and utilities.

Many of the WPA’s undertakings still form the framework of the United States. In addition, depression-era Americans were able to connect with a broad range of fine and performing arts aimed at enhancing their quality of life. Through the administration of Federal Project Number One, the WPA presented cultural events including concerts, art exhibitions, and plays, all contained under the umbrella of the Federal Art Project (FAP). The FAP hired visual artists, theater professionals, and writers to create, produce, perform, and promote entertaining experiences and to document the rich traditions and history of America’s folk arts.

Under the FAP, the WPA Poster Division was charged with producing posters to raise awareness and promote a wide range of programs, activities, and behaviors that the Roosevelt administration believed would improve people’s lives: community involvement, accessible education, good health and hygiene, a strong work ethic, cultural outings, sports, domestic travel, and conservation of natural resources, among many others. At its height, the division boasted offices in eighteen states, setting up shop in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. From roughly 500 artists hired throughout the life of the project, more than 35,000 designs were created and two million posters were produced and distributed.

A PEOPLE’S MEDIUM

Posters are a powerful and influential public art form—they attract attention and distribute a message to a wide, diverse, and ever-changing audience. The WPA’s posters appeared on public transportation and street kiosks as well as in shop windows, schools, community centers, and libraries, quickly becoming part of the fabric of Americans’ everyday lives.

Despite their decorative quality, posters are meant first and foremost to be noticed. Their ultimate goal is to convince the viewer of the subject’s importance and to inspire action. In the words of Ralph Graham, supervisor of the Chicago Poster Division, the purpose of a poster is to “shock the viewer into looking and, once having looked, to retaining its message.” The WPA posters were designed to promote not only social programs but also a set of positive values and behaviors. This quality pushes them beyond artistic advertising and into the world of government propaganda. For this reason, we have organized the posters according to their intention and the values being promoted, treating them as individual pieces joined by common purpose. The result is more representative of how the posters functioned in the public realm.

SNAPSHOT OF A CULTURE

Beyond their promotional role, these posters can also be considered as a body of artistic work that displays not only the aesthetic impulses of the time, but the social climate and political agenda of the Roosevelt presidency. The Poster Division was part of an effort to perpetuate a positive and proactive revitalization of the country, and there is every indication that the artists involved stepped up to the challenge with great care. As evidenced by the high quality of the posters, and despite limited financial resources, the work of this government agency achieved inspiring, artistic, creative, and technically bold results.

Although no single “school” or style is embodied in the posters, they do share several artistic, iconographic, and functional qualities that unite them into a cohesive body of work.

Almost all carry a positive, promotional tone. Their beautiful and high-quality designs send a message that the subject matter was important. Scare tactics were rarely used, even to discuss serious health issues, and good civic behavior was encouraged through reinforcement, not demands.

The posters depict a “kinder, gentler nation.” There was an expectation that people would respect one another, different cultures, nature, and children, all important elements of a cohesive and successful society. Workplace posters called for “More courtesy,” and children were routinely shown as subjects, evidence of a commitment to younger generations as the nation’s future.

“The Government unwittingly launched a movement to improve the commercial poster and raise it to a true art form.”

Richard Floethe, Director, WPA/FAP Poster Studio, New York, 1936–43 From Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by Artists and Administrators of the WPA Federal Art Project

Frequently, timeless icons are used to depict people, places, and natural elements. Faces have few defining features, and buildings are reduced to geometric shapes. Such a simplified graphic style appealed universally to broad audiences from varying economic, educational, and cultural backgrounds.

Many examples show a respectful portrayal of ethnic diversity, a surprising fact, given the period. In the 1930s, unflattering stereotypes of African Americans and American Indians were used to sell commercial products (tobacco, soap, breakfast cereal), making it striking how honorably different ethnicities are represented and diverse cultures are celebrated in the posters.

Technically, the posters represent innovative developments in American graphic design and poster printmaking. Production shifted from hand-painted images on easels to woodblock and lithography and, in 1936, to the revolutionary use of silkscreen, previously only a commercial medium. WPA poster artists influenced a new generation of fine art printmakers and paved the way for the groundbreaking works of Andy Warhol, among others.

KEEPING THE LEGACY ALIVE

Critique of federally funded work programs—especially the art projects—eventually led to cuts throughout the system and signaled the end of the WPA in 1943. Because no central federal repository was established to archive the works, many state agencies simply discarded their records. The posters were particularly vulnerable because they were seen as ephemera, not as American art worthy of being catalogued and preserved for future generations.

This book is part of an effort to once again bring the posters to the public. Posters for the People presents nearly 500 of the best examples identified by the WPA Living Archive (for more information on this effort, see here). Many are part of the Library of Congress online archive, but more than one-quarter were discovered in other private and public collections and have not been seen in more than seventy years.

Even today, the posters of the WPA still achieve their original goals. They call attention to important social issues and values through beautiful and meaningful design. Together, they serve as timeless reminders of Americans’ collective past and a commitment to a bright future. They continue to inspire people to believe in America as a hopeful and positive nation for all.

NOTES
ABOUT THE
COLLECTION

T he posters collected in this book represent great artistic achievement, but their primary function was to provide propaganda for Roosevelt’s New Deal program.

The purpose of propaganda is to convey the value of specific ideas and to convince viewers to act in ways that support those ideas. For this reason, we have organized the posters by the values being promoted and the actions being encouraged in each. The categories we established represent the values popular during? the era. The intent of each poster—as it calls the viewer to think or act—is what places it into a particular category.

For example, workplace safety posters were intended to enhance the quality of the work environment and increase production, so you’ll find them in the “Prosperity & Opportunity” section rather than in “Health & Safety.” Similarly, a poster about an amateur magicians contest encourages community involvement in shared entertainment—it doesn’t call attention to the art of practicing magic—so you’ll find that poster in the “Community Events” section instead of “Theatre, Dance & Music.”

Since posters are displayed in various locations and must often compete with advertising and other promotional materials, we have intentionally separated similar subject matters within categories. We hope you’ll enjoy them as individual works presented alongside other self-contained powerful counterparts.

NOTES
ABOUT THE
CAPTIONS

Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of information. Since no central record on the posters exists, there are some unique regional differences in the way information was provided. In those cases, we defer to the posters to document titles, punctuation, and agency information. When the poster workshop location, medium, or commissioning agency was unclear or indeterminable, these lines were omitted. We hope that through the publication of this volume, more information will become available, thus deepening our understanding and appreciation of American graphic arts and New Deal history.

Title	Jobs for Girls & Women
Artist, Workshop Location, Date of Creation	Albert M. Bender, Chicago, IL, ca. 1936–41
Medium	Silkscreen on board
Commissioning New Deal Agency	Illinois State Employment Service
Repository Credit	Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, WPA Poster Collection, LC-USZC4-1587 DLC

FOR THE RECORD Look for this icon, which identifies posters that have not been cataloged by the U.S. government and are new to the WPA Living Archive’s online record.