WORT 89.9FM Madison · Pressing Issues: Printmaking as Social JusticeKatie Koca Polite – assistant curator and publications specialist. With prints from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). (Photo by L. Brian Stauffer)During the Great Depression in the 1930s, workers from all industries suddenly found themselves without a job. In response, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program created institutions like the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration to put people to work on projects that would benefit the public. In addition to civil engineering projects focused on employing workers in construction, factory work, office work and forestry, the Roosevelt Administration also paid attention to another group whose work had disappeared: artists. In 1935, the Works Progress Administration established the Federal Art Project, which employed as many as 10,000 visual artists and craft workers. On September 8, the Chazen Museum of Art will open a new exhibit, “Pressing Issues: Printmaking as Social Justice in the 1930s,” featuring works by Federal Art Project artists. Kathryn Koca Polite curated the new exhibit, and she joined the Monday Buzz on August 2, 2026.

Featured image: Chet La More, Civilians, ca. 1937. Lithograph. Allocated by the US Government, Commissioned through the New Deal art projects, 1943-4-231.

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