[PADG:1056] LC National Digital Library Program announces release of WPA Posters collection

[Tamara Swora-Gober <tswo@xxxxxxx>]

This message is being widely posted.

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The Library of Congress National Digital Library Program and the Prints
and Photographs Division announce the release of the online collection,
?By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943? at the
American Memory Web site.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html

During the Great Depression and World War II, the federal government
employed artists to design posters to publicize cultural programs, to
encourage people to get appropriate medical care, to promote better
housing and to enlist support for the war effort.  Of the 35,000 posters
created by WPA Federal Art Project artists, approximately 2,000 are
still in existence.  This newest addition to the American Memory online
collections, presents 907 of these boldly colored original posters which
document a significant period in the history of American design.  These
posters were created by one of the first government agencies to support
the arts.  They provide information on the issues of interest to the
organizations requesting these posters.  They cover activities from
seventeen states and the District of Columbia.  Users will find many
?See America? posters encouraging people to visit their national parks
and cultural landmarks.  They will also find posters urging the public
to be checked for cancer and to obtain proper treatment, as well as
posters for musical events, theatrical programs and other community activities.

The Library obtained this collection, the largest of WPA posters in
existence, during the 1940s.  Though most of the posters were
silk-screened, there are some lithographs and woodcuts.  Those
interested in art and design will enjoy the variety of images as well as
the color and the unique design formats.  Viewers of this collection
will come to understand why Richard Floethe, the head of the New York
poster division stated, ?the government unwittingly launched a movement
to improve the commercial poster and raise it to a true art form.?

Three special presentations supplement the collection.  A short video
interview with master silkscreener Tony Velonis, taped in 1994, provides
users with the opportunity to hear one of the WPA?s poster artists
discuss his personal experiences and his craft.  Also included is a
calendar created in 1938 by the New York City Poster Division to show
government officials the skilled work being done by the Federal Art
Project staff.  Users can flip the pages of the calendar to view the
artwork month by month.  The third special presentation presents
collection highlights selected by Library staff to document the depth of
the collection, the variety of styles and the content of the WPA
posters.  Many of the posters shown in the collection highlights have
not been widely published.

Digitizing the Collection

Each poster in the WPA collection has been copied onto slide film to
facilitate photographic reproduction orders and to reduce handling of
the posters themselves.  The slides were scanned to provide digital
images for this online collection. 

About one-third of the slides were digitized in the early 1990s to
create an analog videodisc which was used as a reference aid in the
Prints and Photographs Division.  These slides were first photographed
onto an intermediate negative film and then digitized to approximately
1500 pixels in the long dimension.  For these posters, a thumbnail
image, a 640-pixel JPEG format image, and the uncompressed archival
image are available for viewing and downloading. 

The remaining slides were digitized to approximately 4000 pixels in the
long dimension by JJT, Inc. of Austin, Texas in the summer of 2000. 
Because these uncompressed archival images are so much larger, an
additional 1024-pixel JPEG format image is available to facilitate
display of small details.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html

Please direct any questions about this collection to ndlpcoll@xxxxxxx