Post Office Reliefs – Scottsboro AL

Description

Section of Fine Arts three section plaster relief entitled “Alabama Agriculture” installed in 1940 by Constance Ortmayer in the Scottsboro post office.

“Ortmayer was teaching at Rollins College in Florida when she received the invitation to do a panel in Scottsboro. She chose a theme based on Alabama agriculture, especially cotton and corn. She described the final images: “Three phases of cotton growing form the theme of the central panel. On the right the cultivation of the crop is symbolized by the young man working with a hoe among the new plants. Opposite a young woman is depicted picking ripened bolls, and for the background, the processing and shipping of cotton is represented by the bales and the strong figure of a second young worker standing between them. Both of the flanking panels interpret the growing of corn. The young man and woman shown on the right are examining the fruit on the ripened stalks and the couple on the left are represented as workers who have harvested the new crop.” The Section office wrote about the work in these words: “In a sculpture characterized by clean, flowing lines, Miss Ortmayer gives an exceptionally effective representation of the youthful strength and grace that each new generation brings to the agriculture of the south.””

(https://www.alabamamoments.state.al.us/sec49det.html)