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PWA Rebuilds the Nation.

Washington, D.C.: Public Works Administration, [ca. 1935]. Color lithograph, 34.5” x 51.5” plus margins. CONDITION: Very good, margins lightly soiled and a few light stains, a few short repaired tears in margins.

A New Deal-era propaganda map celebrating the breadth of projects throughout the land commissioned by the Public Works Administration (PWA).

This government-issued map is replete with a colorful smattering of several dozen vignettes—each indicating a specific PWA project—that span every state in the continental U.S. An additional forty-three projects, depicted in black and white, form the border. With the intent of bolstering public perception of the scope and success of the PWA, the piece highlights its most emblematic projects, which are pictured both on the map itself and in the border. These include civic buildings (e.g., the Oregon State Capitol, and the New Mexico Supreme Court Building), major dams (Bonneville, Grand Coulee, and Boulder/Hoover Dam), bridges, highways, railways, water infrastructure, and electrification projects. It also features public schools, universities, hospitals, public housing, monuments and memorials, projects on Indian reservations, and national park developments. Depictions of muscular workers are interspersed along the border and featured on the dynamic compass rose, drawn in the heroic art deco style of that era. Ships and airplanes—both civilian and military—throughout the map round out the scene.

As specified in the text, the several dozen public works represented here are “only a selected number of typical examples” of PWA projects, of which there were over 34,000 in total. The PWA was established in 1933 and headed by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, ultimately spending over $6 billion on public works projects “in nearly every county in the United States” with the stated goal of “stimulat[ing] industry and employment.” Unlike a related New Deal Program, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the PWA awarded contracts for public works projects to private firms as opposed to the government hiring workers directly. 

Earl Purdy (1892–1971) was an architect and artist from New York state. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War I, Purdy studied architecture at Colgate, Cornell, and Columbia. His notable architectural projects include the American National Cemetery (Florence, Italy), a Veterans Hospital in Hawaii, and Playland amusement park (Rye, New York). Purdy was a member of several arts and architecture societies and a trained painter, apparently competing in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles in the arts category.

A remarkably detailed and informative map of New Deal-era projects that redefined the nation’s built heritage and contributed to a new American sense of self.

REFERENCES: “Obituary for Earl Purdy,” Indiana Gazette (Indiana, Penn.), April 24, 1971; Cornell University, Persuasive Cartography: The PJ Mode Collection, 1276; Boston Public Library G3701.A5 1939 .U5; Rumsey 3975.

Item #10029

Price: $2,750.00

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