The 2020 WPA Calendar is here
In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (the name was changed to Work Projects Administration in September of 1939), as part of his New Deal program to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. In July of 1935, Federal Project Number One (Federal One) was established within the WPA as a central administration for the arts-related projects. Federal One provided funds specifically for artists, musicians, actors, and writers through the Federal Art Project (FAP), the Federal Music Project, the Federal Theatre Project, and the Federal Writer’s Project. FAP employed more than five thousand artists in various art projects including the many poster divisions that were created throughout the United States.
Many New Deal administrators believed that art could be a part of the daily lives of all Americans, not just the elite, and could enrich the lives of all who came in contact with it. The main objective of FAP was the employment of out-of-work artists, but this was not its only goal. The activities of FAP also included art production, education, and research. The project employed artists in the fields of easel painting, sculpture, photography, mural painting, and graphic arts, and it also held exhibitions and organized community arts centers through which many Americans were first introduced to the arts. Another well-known, well-received FAP project, the Index of American Design, created a survey of illustrations of American decorative and folk arts from colonial times through the late nineteenth century.
Library of Congress
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