I fell off the blogging wagon after viewing my site statistics and seeing that nobody was reading this drek. Then today I read this great article You've Got Blog (via The 2002 Bloggies: The Second Annual Weblog Awards) and was inspired to get back on the blogging horse.
Via the Day Late section of Mena's Dollarshort.org I found a link to this:
"The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library's holdings in the 1940s"
These posters are really great, some of them are even available for download as .jpg and .tif files. These would be fun to use for some kind of handmade book.
In case you were wondering, like I was, what the WPA was, it was part of FDR's Second New Deal. More info can be found at this site about New Deal Cultural Programs. Essentially it was a program from FDR's second term whose aim was to put those unemployed by the Depression to work providing cultural (art, writing, theater) opportunities the public at large would benefit from. I thought that the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was part of this same initiative, but according the CCC alumni website's history section, the CCC, though similar in drive and nature, was an outgrowth of FDR's Emergency Conservation Work Act.
While the current percentage of our population who are unemployed don't come near the numbers of post-depression America, I think it might be nice to have re-implementation of some of these programs. Having enjoyed many public parks that were helped along by the CCC (see a list of work done at Letchworth State Park by the CCC), I may have a much more romantic view of the programs than is entirely practical. But, hey, we should have learned something from the first go 'round to make it easier to do a second time right? Though I think that Clinton's Americorps program has echos of Roosevelt's ideas.
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