Abstract
The Depression era introduced both unprecedented and reoccurring anxieties that deeply affected average Americans. The question of how to respond aesthetically to major issues of economy, social instability, and an unsure future led artists to follow a canon of popular art that pointed to the idealized solidarity of an American people bonded by an imagined national community. Government-sponsored artists distilled ideals of national identity and unity in their depictions of working men and women, ignoring regional tensions and differences that had once divided the nation into disparate entities.
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Recommended Citation
Wills, Gabrielle
(2026)
"One Step Forward, Three Steps Back: Picturing Working Men and Women in New Deal Government-Sponsored Art,"
Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 16:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2026.160103
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol16/iss1/3
Supplemental Dois