.jpeg)
Acerca de
PRints for
the people
Celebrating the work of the WPA/FAP poster division
A little bit of history
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a New Deal program established by president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935. The goal of the WPA was to provide jobs to out of work Americans affected by the Great Depression. In July of 1935, Federal Project One was established within the WPA to administer arts related projects. Federal Project One provided funds specifically for the arts through the Federal Arts Project (FAP), the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theater Project, and the Federal Writer's Project.
​
In 1934, a year before the creation of the FAP, New York City created the Mayor's Poster Project to produce posters for some of Mayor LaGuardia's favorite civil projects. The MPP was absorbed by the federal government in 1935 and became the first poster division of the FAP. The NYC poster division was headed by Richard Floethe, a German born industrial designer who was educated in the fundamentals of the aesthetic movement known as the Bauhaus.
By 1938 there were poster divisions in at least 18 states. The FAP poster divisions created posters mainly for other programs within the FAP, as well as federal and state New Deal programs.
​
Posters were originally created by hand, each one being painted and lettered individually, but later on made use of the silk screen process.
Why these posters matter
The posters produced by the WPA give a unique glimpse of our past. Themes ranged from FAP theater project shows, to tourism, to disease prevention.
In 1938 the Signs Of The Time, an advertising and design journal, wrote "The poster division … is doing a valuable service to the profession in general and the consumer in particular, in trying to combine good craftsmanship and design with original ideas …it is to be hoped that these beneficial WPA productions may act as a stimulating influence to poster artists in all parts of the country."
​
More than 2 million posters were produced from over 35,000 designs during the existence of the WPA, however, only about 2,000 posters are known to exist today. The Library of Congress houses the larges collection of WPA posters with over 900 in their collection.
Making the notebooks
The WPA posters were one of the biggest inspirations in the founding of American Pigeon, and we wanted to find a way to celebrate them. We have chosen some of our favorites from the collection of the Library Of Congress and carefully worked to digitally restore scans of the original posters.
Each poster is then formatted
for the cover of a notebook.
Like all of our notebooks, we
do all of the production
ourselves, by hand, to ensure
you get a notebook that you
will love.
​
​
Learn more about WPA/FAP posters here:
https://www.loc.gov/collections/works-progress-administration-posters/about-this-collection/