WPA Prints in Special Collections

Additional Material

During the 1930s, there was catastrophic unemployment in the country. A federal project was put in place in 1935, called "Work Projects Administration" which would utilize the skills of out-of-work employees helping them to earn a small wage to survive. Previous efforts had begun in 1933, to assist unemployed artists under the Public Works of Art Project established by the Treasury Department. The country was divided into sixteen regions, one of which was the Cleveland region. Two people were instrumental in the success of the Cleveland effort William M. Milliken, Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Linda A. Eastman, Director of the Cleveland Public Library. The significant benefit of their collaboration and leadership was a regional approach to art that exemplified and identified the "Cleveland Scene." In 1935, the Works Progress Administration, took over the support of artists on relief and hired hundreds of workers for the Federal Art Project in music, theater, writing and art, the Federal Art Project alone employed 350 Cleveland artists.