Posters for the People
Arriving just in time for the 75th anniversary of the New Deal, Posters for the People features nearly 500 of the best posters produced by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s and 1940s. As many of us will recall from high school history class, the WPA employed hundreds of out-of-work artists to raise awareness about public issues and civic life. Today these posters are celebrated as iconic works of graphic design; they also provide timeless messages about the merits of hard work, good parenting, a clean house, and personal hygiene.
Posters for the People was produced by the WPA Living Archive, a project started in 2002 to preserve the legacy of these images. Some of the posters have been cataloged by the Library of Congress, but more than 100 are “new” and have never been published in book form. Complete with hundreds of beautifully reproduced images, Posters for the People is essential reading for artists, designers, collectors of Americana, and anyone interested in United States history.
Ennis Carter is the founder and director of Design for Social Impact in Philadelphia and the driving force behind the WPA Living Archive. Christopher DeNoon is the author of Posters of the WPA and co-owner of Fibula Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
