The WPA & the Golden Age · The Public Good
Give to the needy
Work Projects Administration Poster Collection, 1938
What it is
A WPA color silkscreen, printed on board between 1936 and 1939, announcing a vaudeville show to raise money for a children's milk fund. Its verso carries a stamp dated February 2, 1939.
Why it matters
The benefit was for the Long Beach, New York milk fund run under Mayor Edwards' welfare committee, and the poster is the Federal Art Project doing exactly what it was built to do: put a trained hand and a cheap process at the service of a local relief drive. It belongs to the Depression's second half, when a night of vaudeville was a plausible way to keep milk in a poor child's hands.
What to notice
One oversized milk bottle is made to carry the entire composition, the cheapest and loudest way to say what the money buys.
Charity, argued in a single object anyone could recognize from across a room.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Format
- Political poster
- Poster published
- Work Projects Administration Poster Collection, 1938
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · 94502853
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
