When Art Worked

With an astoundingly high unemployment rate in the country during the Depression--at 25 percent--New Deal policies provided work for nearly eight million people, who went to work building and landscaping parkways, erecting bridges, improving and expanding state and national parks and creating an astonishing amount of art: 95,000 murals, mosaics, sculptures, paintings, and prints for over 11,000 public buildings. The art created illuminated common necessities, arousing an awareness of the suffering of people. This had an indelible impact on public policy. Everyday Americans--artists, architects, craftspeople, carpenters, masons-- restored and reshaped the country thanks to their unparalleled skill, creativity, and hard work. Their projects transformed the public landscape, architecture, and culture of the period. Evidence of these projects abounds throughout America, a testament to the outstanding quality and timelessness of the works created. Included will be illustrations from the Historic Building Survey and the Index of American Design, with its 22,000 colour illustrations. Also included will be images of the missions of the Southwest, which were rebuilt, restored, and redrawn and Shaker Villages of the East. The book will describe and illustrate projects, such as the building of new schools, the expansion and creation of national, state and local parks and lodges, including the Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Parkway, landscaping programs, and the building of playgrounds, among other projects. The importance of art during this period and how it affected public opinion and policy. You will read about and see the work of Reginald Marsh, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and more. Included will be murals in public buildings, a discussion of the work of composers and musicians and the concerts that were performed, indoors and outdoors, in new band shells that were built, including the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver. A wonderful art book and inspirational journey through the art created through the depression.