Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943)

The devastating stock market crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the history of the United States. At the height of the Depression in 1933, nearly 13 million people—roughly 25 percent of the workforce—were unemployed. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created an economic relief program known as the New Deal to offer employment to struggling Americans. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federally funded agency, hired some ten thousand artists to produce work for public buildings and traveling exhibitions as part of the Federal Art Project (FAP). “I, too, have a dream—to show people in the out of the way places, some of whom are not only in small villages but in corners of New York City—something they cannot get from between the covers of books—some real paintings and prints and etchings and some real music.” Franklin Roosevelt to Hendrik Willem Van Loon, January 6, 1938 From coast to coast, the WPA supported artists who created paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and murals for the American public. These artists drew on their everyday experiences as they depicted their own communities in a wide range of locations from u