Indians at the Post Office: Murals as Public Art: A 21st-century Look at New Deal-era Post Office Murals by Sandra Starr

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal had sponsored several art programs to help get people back to work and to restore confidence in a nation facing 25 percent unemployment. His intent was to install public art in federal buildings, intended to “help boost the morale of people suffering the effects of the Great Depression.” Fine art murals are on the walls of more than 700 post offices nationwide, usually above the postmaster’s office door. Fine art originals depicting scenes of the history of that town or the state. Standing frozen in time, post office murals hold on their surfaces, visual, autobiographic essays of how America saw itself, considered its minorities, and presented its heroes as the Nation moved from a rural to an industrialized society.

LakeWalesFL.Gov/Museum