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April 9, 2020

Ephrastic April, Day 9: "First Official Airmail Flight"

During the Great Depression, the US government created the Works Progress Administration, which put unemployed citizens back to work. The work consisted of a variety of public works projects such as building buildings, roads, and bridges. Creative workers, artists, writers, musicians, directors, were hired to create murals and take oral histories, among other things. The study below, by Dorothea Mierisch, resulted in a mural that decorated a post office in Illinois.


"First Official Airmail Flight," McLeansboro, Illinois, September 26, 1912 (mural study, McLeansboro, Illinois Post Office)" (1940) by Dorothea Mierisch [1885-1977].

$40 million was invested
in putting creatives to work

in 1933

now, artists are worthless
unless their work can be added
to an investment portfolio


© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Yesterday, Atlas Obscura ran a piece on post office murals, click here.

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