Coit Tower’s New Deal Murals

From 1935 to 1943 the Federal Art Project -- a project of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA-- employed some 10,000 artists and craft workers, helping them survive the Great Depression.

The artists created hundreds of thousands of visual arts: paintings, murals, prints, posters, and renderings. Many of them survive to this day, but you have to know where to look for them.
That’s why LHT host Chris Garlock found himself on Telegraph Hill yesterday, during a visit to San Francisco, meeting up with Harvey Smith, who leads tours of local WPA sites. Find out more at LivingNewDeal.org

Coit Tower is home to a stunning collection of murals that have recently been restored; Chris had seen them many years ago and had been struck by the depictions of workers and bosses that managed to be simultaneously beautiful and politically powerful and arranged to meet up with Harvey so he could shed some light on their creation and meaning.

Harvey does a terrific job describing the art, but we’ve also got a great album of photos of the murals posted on the Labor Heritage Foundation’s Facebook page.

On this week’s Labor History in Two: The year was 1917; that was the day IWW leader Frank Little was buried in Butte, Montana.

Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com

Labor History Today is produced by Chris Garlock for the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Coit Tower mural photos by Lisa Garlock.

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