Mississippi State Capitol Painting and Improvements – Jackson MS

Description

Multiple New Deal work relief agencies conducted work at the Mississippi State Capitol during the Great Depression.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) approached the Mississippi state government to put painters to work during the Great Depression. Taking color cues from mosaic tiles in the Senate chamber, the WPA painted, among other areas, details of the main rotunda dome.

After a more recent renovation, Spartanburg, S.C.’s Herald-Journal reported that “Both chambers [of the Mississippi State Capitol] wear the duplicated colors of a gaudy 1935 Works Progress Administration paint job.”

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration supplied $200,000 toward a $400,000 improvement and repairs program for state buildings. In addition to painting of the dome of the new capitol, woodwork was redecorated, new roof installed, and surface-treatment of the driveway. A color scheme by the artist “calls for dashes of blue, green, gold and red in the huge skylight panes of the dome” (State Buildings, 1934, p. 46). The scaffolding to reach the dome was expected to cost $500. Architects for the repair and improvements were N. W. Overstreet and A. H. Town. Work was begun the week of Nov. 29, 1934 on completion of the decoration to provide a “dome resplendent in beauty and coloring” (Cleveland Enterprise, 1934, p. 2). “The great dome of the New Capitol Building is going to get a new dress under the supervision of Secretary of State Walker Wood, under the repair program being carried on in cooperation with the State and F.E.R.A. The dome will be painted a sky blue with appropriate decorative effects” (Union Appeal, 1934, p. 1). Workmen made improvements to the driveway including pouring concrete, paving curbs and gutters in preparation for asphalt surface.