The WPA & the Golden Age · See America / The Parks
Enjoy - don't destroy
Works Progress Administration, 1936
What it is
A 1936 WPA silkscreen poster showing two children picking flowers, its maker unrecorded. It was published by the Works Progress Administration and held today by the Library of Congress.
Why it matters
The WPA poster shops turned out public-message work by the thousand, and this one distills a parks-and-conservation campaign into a single rhyme: enjoy, don't destroy. It belongs to Depression-era America, when the federal government paid artists to speak plainly to citizens on the wall and in the park. The maker stayed anonymous; the slogan did the arguing.
What to notice
Look at the color areas: silkscreen lays them down flat and opaque, with no halftone dot anywhere to break the surface.
Three words to a child, and they still hold.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Format
- Travel poster
- Poster published
- Works Progress Administration, 1936
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN 98518814; digital ID cph.3f05651
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 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
