On the right is an opinion piece from the late 1930s by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 - 1973) who was very much in favor of Federal funding for the arts (it would end a year later):
"The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest - monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings..."
Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist's patron and culture flourished.
More about the WPA can be read here
More about New Deal spending can be read here...
Read about the radio program that was produced by the WPA writers and actors branch in order to celebrate American diversity; click here.
Click here if you would like to read a 1939 article about the closing of the Federal arts funding program.
Click here to read about the manner in which the Hoover administration addressed the Great Depression.
CLICK HERE to read additional primary source articles about the Great Depression...
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