Designed by Kari VanKommer

THE NEW DEAL AND THE ART OF PUBLIC PERSUASION

P

resident Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the WPA (Works

Progress Administration) into existence by executive order on May 6th, 1933.  One of the  more well known programs contained within FDR’s “New Deal” federal relief package; the foundational purpose of the organization was to simply get unemployed Americans back to work during the height of the Great Great Depression. The WPA is traditionally remembered for building thousands of roads, bridges, public parks and buildings throughout the United States many of which still remain and serve the public today. But In addition to it’s impact on the American infrastructure, an often forgotten  contribution of WPA workers is the organizations promotion of arts and humanities throughout the United States.

Image Credit - courtesy of the US archives: Link to image.

The Federal Arts Program or the FAP was one arm of the WPA solely dedicated to the creation and promotion of the arts in America. One of it’s major undertakings were the creation of promotional posters, today known as the WPA Poster Collection. Between the years 1935 and 1943, the WAP and FAB collectively created and printed more than 2 million posters on more than 35,000 unique subject matters. Of those 2 million around 2,000 remain today. The largest singular collection of these posters, around 900 in total, have been purposefully collected and curated by the Library of Congress for future preservation. Between the years 1935 and 1943, the WAP and FAB collectively created and printed more than 2 million posters on more than 35,000 unique subject matters. Of those two million produced during that time, only around two thousand remain today. Many of these have been purposefully collected and curated by the Library of Congress for future preservation. The WPA Posters created by the WPA and the FAP between 1933

Propaganda is often defined as a derogatory or negative term describing biased material intended to persuade. There is also often an element of dishonesty or hidden truth interwoven within the definition. This DBQ would argue that the WPA posters should not be solely viewed as government propaganda because their overall intent was not a sinister one shrouded in secrecy or dishonesty. The vast majority of the posters are focused on the promotion of good health, travel and arts promotion.  However, some would argue that the WPA posters are “propaganda” Image Credit - courtesy of simply because they were the Library of Congress: Link created with the intention to to image. persuade Americans from a singular pro-government point of view and that in and of itself may classify them as being a form of propaganda.

Regardless of the debate over whether these posters should be considered propaganda or not. There are several key techniques academics used when analyzing materials that is created to persuade and in this DBQ these techniques will be helpful to use as well. The most import questions to ask yourself when looking at all of the posters in this collection are below. I.

What is the ideology and purpose of the propaganda?


II.

What is the context in which the propaganda occurs?


III.

Who is the propagandist? 


IV.

What is the structure of the propaganda organization?


V.

Who is the target audience?


VI.

What techniques for persuasion are being used?


VII. What audience reactions are the techniques hoping to elicit?
 


Essential Question: How did the WPA use art to influence public opinion?

Selling the New Deal to Americans As we know from modern examples, in order for a political concept or program to be truly effective, the people must believe in the concept. Upon its founding, the New Deal faced steep opposition both in the political and public realms. In order for the employment relief programs to work, the public needed to be convinced they were serving a valid purpose and to subscribe to the ideals of earning a wage instead of accepting charity. Some argued at the time and to the present day that it would have been better and cheaper for the country to simple give people the federal money instead of having them work for it. Harry

Hopkins, director of the WPA, fiercely believed providing people the opportunity to earn a wage did much less to destroy their soul and the fabric of American idealism than simple handing out the badly needed resources. Many WPA Posters were initially dedicated to promoting the New Deal programs and the opportunities they provided. Let’s look at a couple examples of how the art attempted to sway public opinion in this way.

Image Credit - courtesy of the Library of Congress: Link to image.

Directions: Use the source information, your knowledge of history, and the poster to answer the questions below. Source: This poster was published by the Federal Art Project, in 1938.

Questions: Who do you think is the audience for the poster? Do you consider this poster to be propaganda? Why or why not?

Image credit: ‘Forging ahead Works Progress Administration’ artist: Harry Herzog, courtesy of the Library of Congress. Link to image.

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Directions: Use the source information, your knowledge of history and the poster to answer the questions below. Background Information: In order for the WPA jobs programs to work, the state services controlling many of the employment relief needed healthy able bodied people to apply to those jobs and to be motivated to have them. This was important for the programs to serve their purpose, but also for them to be perceived by opponents of The New Deal as being successful.

Questions: What techniques are the creators of this poster using to persuade? Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: Artist Bender, Albert M, Link to image.

Would you consider one more persuasive than the other? Why or why not?

Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: ‘Ready to serve - trained, efficient workers--Household Service Demonstration Project, W.P.A.’ artist: Sara, Cleo, artist, created 1939  Link to image.

Promoting American Ideals: Literacy, Health and Safety Directions: Use the source information, your knowledge of history and the poster to answer the questions below. Source: This poster was created by the WPA in 1940.

Questions: What is this poster wanting people to do? How is it attempting to persuade? What does this tell you about 1940 in the USA. What were some values this poster reveals? What would be different if it was created today?

Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: Link to image.

Encouraging Public Health Directions: Using the background and source information, your knowledge of history and the photograph to answer the questions below.

Background Information: These posters were created between 1937-1940 by artists in the WPA to promote public health in America.

Questions: What techniques is the creator of this poster using to persuade the audience? Do you find this poster compelling? Why or why not?

Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: Link to image.

Directions: Use the source information, your knowledge of history and the poster to answer the questions below.

Encouraging Good Parenting

Sourcing Information: This image was created in November of 1938 by an artist in the WPA.

Questions: Which is more powerful in this poster- the images or the words? How do each of these posters attempt to persuade public opinion either similarly or differently? Why is good parenting important in a functioning society? Image Credit - Artist: Krause, Erik Hans Courtesy of the Library of Congress: Link to image.

Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: Link to image.

Expanding Horizons Several of the most iconic posters in the WPA collection depict American tourist destinations and encourage the observer to travel. This subsection of the collection is often referred to as the WPA National Parks Collection.

Contextualizing the National Parks Posters: Much of the WPA work on American infrastructure focused on the improvement of roads and facilities servicing National Parks and recreation sites throughout the country. These posters bent on persuading the public to explore the continental USA served several purposes. They encouraged Americans to take advantage of the new facilities and money being put into these parks thus raising the overall perception of WPA project validity. By encouraging Americans with the extra income to travel, they also hoped to affect the economic recovery of the areas and regions supporting the tourist areas. A healthy economy is one where people travel and spend their extra earnings near and far. This is ultimately what the poster campaign hoped to achieve. As a bonus the beautiful creations revealed America's natural treasures to many who had never seen a picture of the Grand Canyon or Yosemite National Park before the era of Television.   Image Credit - Courtesy of the Library of Congress: link to image.

Questions: How do these posters appeal to reason vs. emotions? In your opinion are these posters effective? What do you find most striking about the images presented?

Image Credit(s) - courtesy of the Library of Congress: Image one, Image two.

Compare these three images:

Encouraging the Protection Wildlife Questions: Does this section of posters try to influence or inform the public in any way? What stylistic tools are used to connect with the posters’ intended audience? Which poster in this group do you think is the most persuasive? Why?

Image Credit(s) - courtesy of the Library of Congress: Image one, Image two, Image three 12

Art

is a powerful

medium. It can affect people in ways that no other form of persuasion can. Visual stimulation can excite and convince, amuse and anger us. Some may argue that the WPA posters were a waste of resources and materials, created only to give desperate people something to do. This chapter’s intent is not to challenge the political opinions revolving around the New Deal, but instead to provide an opportunity to look back at these posters that now serve as an amazing resource into our collective past. They reveal a great deal about what Americans thought a functioning society would do and how it would act. Brush their teeth, read, take care of their children, travel etc. The WPA Poster project also served as a start for many artists who would later be added into the cannon of great American artists. Artists such as Jackson Pollock, Thomas

Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, and Grant Wood. Regardless of the motivation or context of creation for art. To create as an act unto itself is a noble endeavor, and when Americans create, they produce wonderful things, as proof by these posters. As the world changes and continues to become more globalized the power to persuade public opinion through various mediums becomes even more important, today on an even larger scale. In the meantime the WPA poster collection will continue to serve as a time capsule of information on the political mechanics of that period in American history as well as the testament to the American ability to create things of great beauty and originality even in the bleakest of times. To view the full WPA Collection at the Library of Congress please click here.

This project was such a great opportunity to try my hand at creating the type of relevant history lesson that I want to include in my curriculum as a future social studies teacher. Unfortunately, I did not fully take advantage of it as I wish I had. Initially I struggled narrowing down a subject, I wanted to land on something I felt a strong personal connection to which would also be relatively simple to construct a DBQ project around. Quickly settling on the topic of communism and the Red Scare, I felt confident, perhaps a little too confident. When I realized that someone had focused on that topic last year for this project, I decided that topic would no longer work for me. I could have carried on with the communist angle and perhaps focused more specifically on one aspect of it such as the Rosenbergs or the Cuban Missile Crisis, but my internal drive to be as close to original as possible forbid me from this. Instead I decided to switch gears entirely. After debating various topics in my head from Civil War Reconstruction to the often forgotten historical figure of Noah Webster, of that dictionary we refer to from time to time (who I discovered in my preliminary research may have been a thoroughly unlikable fellow which is why his contributions to the founding of the USA have largely been forgotten…) but I digress. After bouncing around a variety of ideas after the Red Scare topic fell through, I finally settled on focusing my DBQ on the New Deal and the various forms of propaganda and art that came out of that time period in American life. This period in history is complicated and filled with difficulties and political initiatives that mirror our own times to such a degree it is almost unsettling. Much as President Obama has needed to sell his ideas for recovery and change in the last six years such as the

Affordable Care Act, so FDR needed to sell his plan for getting America out of the Great Depression. The poster collection created by the WPA and FAP between 1933-1943 is one of the first things I re-discovered when researching this topic. They are beautiful, modern and striking. The have an agenda, often times more than one and they have much to tell us about what art can do to shift public opinion, and what those responsible for creating those posters believed needed to be shifting. Once I settled on a topic my drudgery through this project was not alleviated. I did not have a focused point of view or purpose for the posters though I know I wanted to use them. Peter Pappas helped me collate my thoughts on what things could be asked of students in relation to the artwork and what conclusions or inferences could be drawn that might be helpful. My resulting DBQ project is not the best thing I have every produced, but it is definitely a place to start. As one of my favorite authors Elizabeth Gilbert has said “You must be very polite with yourself when you are leaning something new.” If I could do it again I would get started much sooner, put my head down and find a topic I felt was original and interesting. I might have focused on maps or the layout of cities in America or something closely related to that. The good news is I hope to be at this for a while and I think the benefit of DBQ questions can not be understated, so I might just get me do-over shot after all. For now it’s about doing the best you can and learning that procrastination does not a stellar project make.


~ Kari VanKommer Twitter/@MissKVK | email

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FROM - EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL II 


Complete iBook available free at iTunes

EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL II This eBook is a collaborative project of Peter Pappas 
 and his Fall 2014 Social Studies Methods Class 
 School of Education ~ University of Portland, Portland Ore.

Chapters in chronological order

1. The American Revolution by Scott Deal

Graduate and undergraduate level pre-service teachers were assigned the task of developing an engaging research question, researching supportive documents and curating them into a DBQ suitable for middle or high school students. For more on this class, visit the course blog EdMethods 
 For more on the assignment and work flow tap here.

2. The Pig War by Andy Saxton 3. Cesspool of Savagery by Michelle Murphy 4. Chemical War by Erik Nelson 5. Americans’ Perceptions of Immigration 
 in the 1920s by Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell 6. The New Deal and the Art of Public Persuasion 
 by Kari VanKommer 7. Combat Soldiers in Context by Kristi Anne McKenzie




8. The Marshall Plan: Altruism or Pragmatism? 
 by Sam Kimerling

Engaging questions and historic documents empower students to be the historian in the classroom. 


9. Little Rock Nine: Evaluating Historical Sources 
 by Christy Thomas 10. First Ladies as a Political Tool by Emily Strocher

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Peter Pappas, editor 
 School of Education ~ University of Portland His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional resources, projects and publications. Follow him at Twitter @edteck. His other multi-touch eBooks are available at here. For an example of one of his eBook design training workshops tap here.

CC BY-NC 3.0 Peter Pappas and Kari VanKommer, 2015 The authors take copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.

Cover image: Replica of old French globe
 Date:1 January 1, 2013
 Petar Milošević Source

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