Browse Items (18 total)

Young defense woman. This young woman, trained in a National Youth Administration (NYA) work center, is contributing to defense as the result of skill acquired on the government project. Scene from Women in Defense, Office of War Information (OWI)…

Crafts are an important part of any culture, as are any other leisure activity. Crafts are learned in school and are a staple at summer camps. The Works Progress Administration gave people jobs teaching others crafts, as it helps the people who need…

Quilting is an important cultural activity. Different patterns mean different things, and quilts were used as signals if a location was safe on the Underground Railroad. Women also used to get together and make quilts, women did this frequently in…

Works Progress Administration: display of arts and crafts projects in Kansas

The Works Progress Administration taught crafts to those involved in the program. The Administration was also dedicated to preserving the history of the United States of…

Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled "Monopoly" over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled "Arrogance", and carrying a shield labeled "Corruption of the Legislature" and a lance labeled…

River and Clouds, Emil Armin, 1941, WPA, screenprint printed in brown ink on wove paper, 11 7/8 × 15 7/8 inches. Gift of the Works Progress Administration, Federal Art Project, to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Made at the beginning of World War…

Print shows waves of veterans marching through a memorial arch on "Decoration Day", carrying banners that state "We will continue to save the country, so long as there is a dollar in the Treasury" and "Army of Pensioners". On the right, Uncle Sam…

Photograph taken eight years after Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago. The image shows three people walking down a row of deteriorating buildings, likely houses. It is living conditions, like those shown in the above photograph, that would…

At the age of twelve, Ehrich Weiss ran away from home in an effort to earn money and to alleviate his family's grinding poverty. This is the earliest sample of Houdini's handwriting in the collections of the Library of Congress and it is supplemented…

Mural commissioned by the Works Progress Administration

Artists were one of the groups most affected by the Great Depression as no one had the money to buy the artists works, or commission the artists for specific works. The Works Progress…