I keep hoping that the economic stimulus plan will include funding for the arts, but I haven’t seen any sign of this. In contrast, one of the legacies of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration are the iconic American photographs by Dorothea Lange [“Migrant Mother”], Arthur Rothstein [“Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm”], Walker Evans, and others as employees of the Farm Security Administration, a New Deal Department of Agriculture agency, which means their works are in the public domain. You can see these here.
Once again we return to the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, this time to look at a few of the 907 WPA posters advertising events supported by Federal funding or created as public service announcements between 1936-1943. A brief history of arts funding in the WPA is provided as well. Many deal with health and World War II; others promote domestic tourism, using libraries, and so on. Here’s a sampling, with credits listed at the bottom of the post.
Read more here.