Art during the Depression
Written by Jerri Brouse
In 1933, the administration of newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt was searching for a way to bring inspiration to Americans in the wake of the Great Depression. That inspiration was found in an unlikely place - on the walls of local post offices across the state. "Americans were down on their luck," said Dr. Curt Miner, Pennsylvania State Museum Senior Curator of Popular Culture. "When Roosevelt was elected to office, he found himself with a nation in crisis.
So he and his administration were fishing around for ideas about how to solve the problems of unemployment and the economic downturn." One of those ideas came from a friend, who urged Roosevelt to consider all Americans - including the artists - when developing projects to boost the economy and the spirits of Pennsylvanians. Roosevelt liked the idea and in turn, commissioned pieces for 88 post offices (an additional six were placed in other federal buildings), instructing artists to use "simple and vital" scenes that would reflect something intrinsically important about the Pennsylvania community in which they were to be installed.
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