Completion Year: 1940

The third-floor hallway at DeWitt Clinton High School contains two huge New Deal murals by Alfred Floegel, The History of the World (walls) and Constellations (ceiling). The oil on canvas murals were painted in 1934-1940. The History of the World is 5 feet 4 inches high and 194 feet long. Floegel worked on the Clinton High School murals from 1934 to 1940. In the wall mural, different eras of world history are represented in sequence, starting at the rear, proceeding up the right wall, then crossing over and proceeding down the left wall. The ceiling is uniformly done in blue and gold,...

The High School of Fashion Industries (formerly the Central High School of Needle Trades) is a New Deal building, which contains a well-known mural by Ernest Fiene. It is commonly believed to be a WPA Arts Project mural, but Gerald Markowitz, co-author of A New Deal for Art (1977), assures us that it is not, even though the spirit of the painting is so typically New Deal.  We have left it on our map because of the common confusion, which this may help allay. "In Manhattan, the fledgling coalition of government, industry, and organized labor created the Central High School of Needle Trades...

The CCC was extensively involved in development of the portion of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area formerly known as Platt National Park: "Originally known as Sulphur Springs Reservation, and later renamed Platt National Park, the park was established in 1902 through an agreement with the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations and the federal government... Though a number of landscape elements in the Platt District relate to the early period of the park’s establishment, the majority of historic landscape resources relate to the period 1933-1940. During this period, NPS professionals planned and designed extensive park infrastructure which was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)....

The historic post office in Durant, Mississippi was built in 1939-40 with Treasury Department funds. The Colonial Revival-style building, which houses an example of New Deal artwork, is still in service.

Sergeant City was public housing built in 1940 under the New Deal.  It is a military-themed housing complex that provided living quarters for non-commissioned officers of the near-by Gowen Field airbase. The complex was built with funding from the Federal Works Agency which, under the federal reorganization of 1939, had become the umbrella for the Public Works Administration, Works Projects Administration, and US Housing Administration.  We believe that the USHA was the primary agency involved. The complex is located along the Pershing Drive loop, on South Latah St. and on Custer Drive (including the cul-de-sacs east of Latah). Some of the buildings...

The post office contains a Section of Fine Arts mural "Chicago, Railroad Center of the Nation" painted by Elizabeth Tracy in 1940. In the 1930’s, many jobs programs were created to help those who were struggling during the depression. The Federal Arts Project under the WPA was a program that employed artists. Murals were a large part of the Federal Arts Project of the New Deal. The Section of the Fine Arts commissioned many artworks like these to be created for federal buildings, such as post offices, and this mural in particular is a great statement about the city of Chicago...

The historic post office in Abingdon, Illinois was constructed in 1939-40 with federal Treasury Department funds. The stately facility is still in service.

Under the Treasury Section of Fine Art, "Seattle artist and museum curator Kenneth Callahan completed  'Fishing' in 1940. The mural provoked some outcry from the local community, who didn't entirely agree with Callahan's depictions of fishing. "Callahan, one of the founders of the Northwest School (a Pacific Northwest art movements) served as a curator at the Seattle Art Museum between 1933-1963." (https://depts.washington.edu)

The historic post office building in Tonawanda, New York was constructed between 1939 and 1940, and "is one of a number of post offices in New York State designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department under Louis A. Simon. The building is in the Colonial Revival style and features a central pavilion crowned by a cupola and flanked by end pavilions with gable roofs. The interior once featured a mural by Symeon Shimin, but it was removed and has disappeared. An addition to the north was added in 1964."

The Rhinebeck post office contains a series of twelve murals (plus those over the windows) depicting scenes from local history. The murals were painted by Olin Dows in 1940 with Treasury Section of Fine Arts funding.  Dows was a Rhinebeck resident , trained at Vassar College and head of the Treasury Relief Art Program – no doubt brought in by the request of President Roosevelt, who had taken a keen interest in the Rhinebeck post office near his home in Hyde Park.   The artist provided a thorough explanation of all the panels in a pamphlet published in 1940 by the Civic...