Federal Art Project

(noun)

The visual arts arm of the Federal Project Number One (under the Works Progress Administration) operating from August 29, 1935 until June 30, 1943. Through the program, artists created posters, murals, and paintings, some of which still stand among the most-significant pieces of public art in the country.

Related Terms

Examples of Federal Art Project in the following topics:

  • Culture in the Thirties

    • The first short-lived New Deal program that supported cultural projects was the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) that run from December 1933 to June 1934.
    • PWAP was replaced by the Federal Art Project (FAP), one of the cultural programs under the 1935 Works Progress Administration (WPA) and a much more ambitious and expansive arts program that its predecessor.
    • FAP provided funding for artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, theater design, and arts and crafts.
    • FAP was part of the Federal Project Number One, a WPA umbrella program that supported not only visual arts but also literature (under the Federal Writers' Project), music (the Federal Music Project), and theater (the Federal Theater Project).
    • Writers, musicians, and theater artists were funded to create both their own original projects and projects under the auspices of the government.

  • Neglected Americans and the New Deal

    • Analogously, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which established federal minimum wage and maximum working hours, excluded agricultural and domestic labor.
    • Black workers participated in all the major programs that created employment, including the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration.  
    • The same was true for the New Deal programs that focused on arts (e.g., Federal Project Number One).  

  • Toward a Welfare State

    • Prominent projects include the Lincoln Tunnel, the Robert F.
    • The Federal Project Number One created jobs for writers, musicians, artists, and theater personnel.
    • Under the Federal Writer's Project, writers cataloged archives, documented folklore, and collected what today would be labeled as oral histories.
    • Under the Federal Theater Project, actresses and actors, technicians, writers, and directors were able to produce plays.
    • Many of these works of art can still be seen in public buildings around the country, along with murals sponsored by the Treasury Relief Art Project of the Treasury Department.

  • The Great Society

    • Some of the programs were designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice; others provided for federal involvement in education, medical care, environmental protection, and arts and culture.
    • The OEO launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965.
    • President Johnson also launched Project Follow Through, implemented in 1967, to follow up with graduates of the Head Start program.
    • The Great Society also created programs to benefit the arts.
    • In September of 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, creating both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

  • Relief and Conservation Programs

    • At that time, the federal government provided no safety net: there was no unemployment insurance, no Social Security, and no welfare.
    • The New Deal thus included many major, federally-financed public works projects, including the construction of bridges, airports, dams, post offices, courthouses, and thousands of kilometers of road.
    • New Deal projects reclaimed millions of hectares of soil from erosion and devastation.
    • Ickes, the PWA spent over $6 billion on 34,599 projects.
    • The agency funded projects and contracted with private construction firms, which carried them out.

  • Relief Measures

    • They also included the continuation of Hoover's major relief program for the unemployed under a new name, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
    • The most popular of all New Deal agencies – and Roosevelt's favorite – was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects.
    • The National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) gave Roosevelt broad powers to regulate industry and launch public works projects.
    • In its 10 years of existence, the PWA worked with private companies to build 34,599 projects, including the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state and the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City.
    • Other agencies undertook a wide range of government-financed public works projects, building bridges, airports, dams, post offices, courthouses, and thousands of kilometers of road.

  • Competing Solutions

    • Furthermore, lowering taxes, public work projects, and loosening credit policies by the Federal Reserve aimed to energize the economy.
    • In short, the federal government introduced many large-scale programs and laws that had direct impact on the life of Americans (e.g., creating jobs through massive public projects; providing direct financial support, etc.) and pushed vast legislation that regulated the market and labor relations as well as proposed social reforms.
    • The Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) was the first large-scale public work project.
    • It created short- and long-term jobs by building and operating a hydroelectric project in the valley of the Tennessee River.
    • The Civilian Conservation Corps (1933) put large numbers of men at work in natural resources projects (e.g., in national forests).

  • Legislative Leadership

    • Roosevelt encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres (360,000 mi² or 930,000 km²) under federal protection.
    • By the time he left office in 1908, Roosevelt set aside more federal land, national parks, and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.
    • Working through the Sierra Club, Muir succeeded in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the federal government by 1905.
    • As depicted in this cartoon, conservation was as an important project throughout Roosevelt's presidency.

  • Art and Music

    • Forms of art and music in the 1960s, ranging from rock and roll to psychedelic art, reflected the characteristics of the counterculture movement.
    • Other bands and musicians, such as The Grateful Dead, Phil Ochs, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Melanie, Frank Zappa, Santana, and the Blues Project did not achieve such commercial success but are nevertheless considered key to the counterculture movement.
    • As with film, press, and music, art in the 1960s responded to the new counterculture, primarily in pop art and psychedelic art.
    • For example, pop art challenged traditional fine art by including imagery from popular culture, such as advertising and news.
    • The concept of pop art refers as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that it led to, and Andy Warhol is often considered representative of this type of art.

  • The Role of the Government

    • The American System advocated a strong federal government and a program of internal improvements, protective tariffs, and a central bank.
    • In 1811, Congress authorized construction of a National Road, a project which was only partially completed with federal funds.
    • In 1816, Congress created the Second Bank of the United States, in order to promote a single currency, increase trade, and issue federal credit.
    • The national system of internal improvements was never well funded in this period, as debates raged about the constitutionality of federal involvement in state improvement projects.