The WPA & the Golden Age · Reading & the Stage
Be kind to books club
Arlington Gregg (1908-1964) · Works Progress Administration, Chicago, 1936
What it is
A color silkscreen poster by Arlington Gregg, made in 1936 for the Works Progress Administration in Chicago. A cluster of children holds up a hand-lettered sign for the Be Kind to Books Club.
Why it matters
This came out of the WPA's Federal Art Project, the New Deal machine that put idle artists to work turning out cheap, printable persuasion for civic causes. Reading was one of that program's steady drumbeats, and Gregg pitches it not as duty but as a children's crusade - the argument for handling a book gently, made by the people most likely to bend a spine.
What to notice
Look at the stencil edges: the silkscreen lays color down in flat, hard-bordered fields, and the crisp cut of each shape is the printing method showing its hand.
A book lives longer when a child is on its side.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Designer
- Arlington Gregg (1908-1964)
- Format
- Exhibition poster
- Poster published
- Works Progress Administration, Chicago, 1936
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN 2011645392
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. government program work (WPA Federal Art Project), any year. Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 27x41" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
