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Art
Goes to Main Street
April 1937
Under federal work projects in art, music, writing and the drama,
men and women have been painting American stuff on the walls of
our buildings, giving the public classical and popular music free
or at low prices, compiling a huge illustrated Baedeker for the
United States, and acting plays in theaters, halls, parks and institutions.
Instruction in elementary and advanced arts,
crafts and music in the neighborhood centers under the projects
has given employment to teachers of those subjects and provided
young people and adults with new interests for their leisure.
Among the many novelties offered by the Federal
Theater was the dramatization of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen
Here. It was played in twenty-three cities. Tampa saw a Spanish
version; Seattle a performance by a company of white and Negro actors,
the white actors in the roles of authority to emphasize the helplessness
of a minority people under a totalitarian state. New York and Los
Angeles had Yiddish as well as English companies. Three hundred
thousand people have seen the play.
A mural for Ellis Island |
At work on sculpture for public buildings
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Eight-year-old Eddie from a boys'
club
learns to paint |
It does happen in Doremus Fessup's
office
on a Broadway stage
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WPA Symphony Orchestra
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Grown-ups study the piano
on dummy keyboards
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Cartoon for a stained glass window
at West Point on the life of Washington |
Many nations and races are represented
in the racial survey group of writers
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