WPA Figures"Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber . . . . We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their self-reliance, courage and determination."--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935 
Times were tough in the United States in the late 1920s, 30s and early 40s. Unless we lived through it, most of us can't appreciate the 25% unemployment rate, the lines for the soup kitchen, and the horrible, parched conditions of the Dust Bowl. With no work, millions of Americans found themselves without a means of support, listless, and depressed. The United States government eventually stepped in with relief programs such as the Work Projects Administration (WPA) which were part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Program. The aim of the WPA was to provide for the welfare of the people by creating paid work for the needy. Subsequently, thousands of men and women were sent to work building roads, bridges, parks, and even producing art, among other things. Not all Americans (including some Kansans) could see the sense in paying people to paint all those "muriels" and carve those "statchews" as one writer put it; some felt the money could be spent better elsewhere. Nevertheless, the WPA hired artists, musicians, librarians, actors, and seamstresses to engage in cultural activities such as producing plays, cataloguing state and municipal library collections, painting murals and making models for museums, libraries, schools and colleges. Such work was meant to promote American art and culture and give more Americans access to what Roosevelt called "an abundant life." The knowledge gained from learning these crafts was meant to enable workers to secure employment in factories or to pursue a craft on an entrepreneurial basis. In Kansas, shops for production were located in Topeka, Kansas City, Emporia, Lawrence, Mayetta, Columbus, and Wichita. Over 126 tax-supported institutions in Kansas acquired objects from the project to use in exhibits or as visual teaching aids. 
The paired figure pictured above was made as part of a service to the Sedgwick County Museum Project in Wichita under the auspices of the larger Kansas Museum Project. Most New Deal administrators believed that federal art projects had the responsibility to reach out to as many Americans as possible and that the end product should be put to practical use. Therefore, these figures, made by artists and seamstresses, were put to use as visual aids in museums and schools. Created in the latter years of the WPA (1938-1941), specifications for the dolls required that they be made in a durable and practical medium, be produced in large quantities by workers with limited training (but who could learn good workmanship and produce an attractive visual aid), and lastly that each figure meet the need for which it was designed. The 1939 catalog of the Kansas Museum Project pictured at right includes color woodcuts of the different dolls. Click on the image to see an example from the catalog. The male and female couple pictured on this page are dressed in traditional Finnish clothing, and were part of a series of "All Nations Figurines." Figures in this series were ten inches tall with bodies made from various scraps and covered in cloth. Their hands are made out of felt and their heads modeled in papier mache and then painted. The male figure is carrying Finland's national flag. A complete set of these figures included 26 pairs; institutions paid about $1 per pair. Unfortunately, the artists (who were mostly women) remain largely anonymous today. The Finnish pair and 17 others were donated to the Kansas Historical Society by the Topeka Art Guild in 1980. They are on display in the main gallery of the Kansas Museum of History.
|
|
 |
Return
to the latest 
