The WPA & the Golden Age · The Public Good
Unfair to babies
Work Projects Administration Poster Collection, 1938
What it is
"Unfair to babies" is a WPA silkscreen poster showing a baby picketing, printed on board in flat color. The Library of Congress dates it between 1936 and 1938; a November 8, 1938 stamp survives on the verso.
Why it matters
Posters like this came out of the Federal Art Project's silkscreen workshops during the Depression, cheap to print and meant for a wall or a window rather than a frame. It borrows the visual grammar of the era's strike lines - the raised placard, the marching figure - and hands it to the smallest possible worker, making a case for child welfare in the language of organized labor. The argument is that the child who cannot speak for himself has a grievance too.
What to notice
The whole thing is flat silkscreen color on board - no shading, just clean poster-weight shapes doing the work.
The picket sign fits a smaller hand than you expected.
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 · 93511162
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
