United States Post Office Murals

They were commissioned through a competitive process by the United States Department of the Treasury. Some 1,400 murals were created for federal post office buildings in more than 1,300 U.S. cities. Murals still extant are the subject of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to preserve and protect them.

In 2019, the USPS issued a sheet of 10 Forever stamps commemorating the murals; the murals were from the post offices of Piggott, AR; Anadarko, OK; Florence, CO; Deming, NM; and Rockville, MD.

 

The Corn Parade (1941) by Orr C. Fisher, in the Mount Ayr, Iowa, post office

 

Rachel Silverthorne's Ride (1938) by John W. Beauchamp, in the Muncy, Pennsylvania, post office

 

Texas Farm (1940) by Julius Woeltz, in the Elgin, Texas, post office

 

 

Western Pennsylvania (1938), Niles Spencer's Precisionist mural for the post office in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, is now in storage at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

As one of the projects in the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States, the Public Works of Art Project (1933–1934) was developed to bring artist workers back into the job market and assure the American public that better financial times were on the way. In 1933, nearly $145 million in public funds was appropriated for the construction of federal buildings, such as courthouses, schools, libraries, post offices and other public structures, nationwide. Under the direction of the Public Works of Art Project, the agency oversaw the production of 15,660 works of art by 3,750 artists. These included 700 murals on public display.^: 43 With the ending of the Public Works of Art Project in the summer of 1934, it was decided that the success of the program should be extended by founding the Section of Painting and Sculpture (renamed the Section of Fine Arts in 1938) under the U.S. Treasury Department, through Treasury Secretary Morgenthau's executive order of October 14, 1934.^: 48 The Section of Painting and Sculpture was initiated to commission 1,400 murals in federal post offices buildings in more than 1,300 cities across America.

The Section focused on reaching as many American citizens as possible. Since the local post office seemed to be the most frequented government building by the public, the Section requested that the murals, approximately 12 by 5 feet (3.7 by 1.5 m) oil paintings on canvas, be placed on the walls of the newly constructed post offices exclusively. It was recommended that 1% of the money budgeted for each post office be set aside for the creation of the murals.

The Treasury Relief Art Project (1935–1938), which provided artistic decoration for existing Federal buildings, produced a smaller number of post office murals. TRAP was established with funds from the Works Progress Administration. The Section supervised the creative output of TRAP, and selected a master artist for each project. Assistants were then chosen by the artist from the rolls of the WPA Federal Art Project.^: 62–63

The Section and the Treasury Relief Art Project were overseen by Edward Bruce, who had directed the Public Works of Art Project. They were commission-driven public work programs that employed artists to beautify American government buildings, strictly on the basis of quality.^: 58–59 This contrasts with the work-relief mission of the Federal Art Project (1935–1943) of the Works Progress Administration, the largest of the New Deal art projects. So great was its scope and cultural impact that the term "WPA" is often mistakenly used to describe all New Deal art, including the U.S. post office murals.^: 63–64 "New Deal artwork" is a more accurate term to describe the works of art created under the federal art programs of that period.

The murals are the subject of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to preserve and protect them. This is particularly important and problematical as some of them have disappeared or deteriorated. Some are installed in buildings that are worth far less than the artwork.

Whereas the Public Works of Art Project paid artists hourly wages, the Section of Fine Arts program awarded contracts to artists based on works entered in both regional and national competitions. For this purpose, the country was divided into 16 regions.

Artists submitted sketches anonymously to a committee of their peers for judging. The committees, composed of art critics, fellow artists and architects, selected the finest works. These were then sent, along with the artists' names in sealed envelopes, to the Section of Fine Arts for ultimate selection. This anonymity was to ensure that all competing artists had an equal opportunity of winning a commission. However, many local painters felt they were being kept out of the process, with the majority of contracts going to the better known artists.

Artists were asked to paint in an "American scene" style, depicting ordinary citizens in a realistic manner. Abstract art, modern art, social realism, and allegory were discouraged. Artists were also encouraged to produce works that would be appropriate to the communities where they were to be located and to avoid controversial subjects. Projects were closely scrutinized by the Section for style and content, and artists were paid only after each stage in the creative process was approved.

The selection of out-of-state artists sometimes generated concerns, such as stereotypes of rural people being portrayed merely as hicks and hayseeds and not having the murals express their cultural values and work ethics. Many residents of small towns, most notably in the Southern states, resented the portrayal of rural lifestyles by artists who had never visited the areas where their artwork would be displayed.^{[page needed]}

In Arkansas, 19 post offices received murals, with two post offices, one in Berryville, Carroll County and another in Monticello, Drew County, receiving sculpture. For seven decades following the Civil War, Arkansas had been perceived as the epitome of poverty and illiteracy by the rest of the nation. Many Arkansans had dealt with hardship and tribulation on a daily basis and the coming of the Depression had not made life easier. Although the sketches of such renowned artists as Thomas Hart Benton and Joseph P. Vorst were based on actual events and people encountered during their travels across the state, they sometimes focused on the worst aspects of life in these rural towns.

This was not the legacy that Arkansans wished to leave their children and grandchildren. They wanted the murals to give hope to the younger generation in overcoming adversity, and provide inspiration for a brighter future with better things to come. In some instances, artists were asked to submit multiple drawings before being accepted by the community.^{[page needed]} When approval was given by the local residents on the artists’ final sketches, work on the murals proceeded, much to the satisfaction of all those involved.

A competition for one mural to be painted in a post office in each of the 48 states (plus Washington, D.C.) was held in November 1939 at the Corcoran Gallery. The jury selecting the winners was composed of four artists: Maurice Sterne (Chairman), Henry Varnum Poor, Edgar Miller, and Olin Dows. Winners were chosen from the original mural studies, not completed murals; community response to artist proposals sometimes resulted in revised designs.

Winners of 48-State Mural Competition

Artist	Title		Image	City	State
	Original	Revised
Robert Gwathmey	Fish for the Interior	The Countryside		Eutaw	Alabama
Seymour Fogel	Indian Dance	History of the Gila Valley		Safford	Arizona
Joseph P. Vorst	Rural Arkansas			Paris	Arkansas
Lew E. Davis	Indian Pony Round	Early Spanish Caballeros		Los Banos	California
John H. Fraser	North Platte Country Against the Mountains	Littleton, Colorado		Littleton	Colorado
A. S. Tobey	Stop of Hooker's Band in East Hartford before Crossing River			East Hartford	Connecticut
William H. Calfee	Saw Mill	Chicken Farm		Selbyville	Delaware
Thomas I. Laughlin	Seascape	Scene of Town		De Funiak Springs	Florida
Elizabeth Terrell	The Ploughman			Conyers	Georgia
Fletcher Martin	Mine Rescue	Discovery		Kellogg	Idaho
Edmund Lewandowski	Threshing Grain	On the River		Hamilton	Illinois
Joseph Meert	Harvesting			Spencer	Indiana
Marion Gilmore	Band Concert			Corning	Iowa
Joe Jones	Men and Wheat			Seneca	Kansas
William E. L. Bunn	Mississippi Packets			Hickman	Kentucky
Laura B. Lewis	County Courthouse	Louisiana Farm		Eunice	Louisiana
Barry Greenbie	River Driving			Dover-Foxcroft	Maine
Alexander Clayton	Three Fishermen and Wild Life Typical of Cecil County			Elkton	Maryland
Jean Watson	A Massachusetts Countryside			Stoughton	Massachusetts
James Calder	Waiting for Mail			Grand Ledge	Michigan
Don Humphrey	Production			North St. Paul	Minnesota
Stuart R. Purser	Ginning Cotton			Leland	Mississippi
James Baare Turnbull	Loading Cattle			Jackson	Missouri
Mordi Gassner	Old Time Pioneers and New			Great Falls	Montana
Philip von Saltza	Wild Horses by Moonlight			Schuyler	Nebraska
Adolph Gottlieb	Homestead on the Plain			Yerington	Nevada
Philip von Saltza	Logging			Milford	New Hampshire
Avery Johnson	Skating on Bonaparte's Pond			Bordentown	New Jersey
Boris Deutsch	Indian Bear Dance			Hot Springs	New Mexico
Mary Earley	Down-Rent-War, Around 1845			Delhi	New York
Alan Tompkins	Tobacco Harvest			Boone	North Carolina
Edward Buk Ulreich	Advance Guard of the West			New Rockford	North Dakota
Richard Kenah	Ohio Harvest			Bridgeport	Ohio
Fred Conway	The Roundup			Purcell	Oklahoma
Jack Wilkinson	Cattle Stampede	Cattle Thieves Surprised by Posse		Burns	Oregon
Lorin Thompson, Jr.	Clearing the Land			Mercer	Pennsylvania
Paul Sample	Railway Station			Westerly	Rhode Island
Lee Gatch	Tobacco Industry			Mullins	South Carolina
M. E. Ziegler	Wheat in the Shock			Flandreau	South Dakota
David Stone Martin	Electrification			Lenoir City	Tennessee
Ethel Edwards	Afternoon on a Texas Ranch			Lampasas	Texas
Jenne Magafan	Western Town			Helper	Utah
Barse Miller	Lumber Yard			Island Pond	Vermont
William H. Calfee	Chesapeake Fishermen			Phoebus	Virginia
Richard Haines	Red River Ox Carts			Shelton	Washington
Henry Varnum Poor	Cartoon for Completed Mural in the Department of Interior Building (New)			Washington, D.C.
Richard Zoellner	West Virginia Landscape			Mannington	West Virginia
Charles W. Thwaites	Threshing Barley			Chilton	Wisconsin
Manuel Bromberg	Chuck Wagon Serenade			Greybull	Wyoming

• List of United States post office murals
• List of New Deal murals