ENDNOTES
1 “Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935,” Pub. L. No. H.J. Res. 117 (1935).
2 Deborah Mutnick, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Federal Writers’ Project,” College English 77, no. 2 (2014), 126; John Y. Cole, “Amassing American ‘Stuff’: The Library of Congress and the Federal Arts Projects of the 1930s,” The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 40, no. 4 (1983), 366.
3 Victoria Grieve, The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 3.
4 William W. Bremer, “Along the ‘American Way’: The New Deal’s Work Relief Programs for the Unemployed,” The Journal of American History 62, no. 3 (1975), 642.
5 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York,” Art Journal 32, no. 1 (1972), 17.
6 “History of the Artists Union,” Art Front, November 1934, 4. For the sake of simplicity, individual articles from Art Front do not appear in the bibliography, but the entire online archive of copies of Art Front from which all articles are sourced is cited as “Digital Archive of Art Front.”
7 Matthew Spender, From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky (University of California Press, 2000), 115.
8 “Idle Artists March in Protest on CWA; 100 Demonstrate in Front of Mrs. Force’s Offices, Charging Unfairness in Giving Jobs,” The New York Times, January 10, 1934, sec. Art-Books, 19.
9 “History of the Artists Union,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
10 Jerry Adler, “1934: The Art of the New Deal,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 2009.
11 “For a Federal Permanent Art Project,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
12 “For a Federal Permanent Art Project,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
13 Stuart Davis, “The Artist Today: The Standpoint of the Artists’ Union,” The American Magazine of Art 28, no. 8 (1935), 476.
14 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York,” Art Journal 32, no. 1 (1972), 17.
15 Matthew Spender, From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky (University of California Press, 2000), 115.
16 Art Front, November 1934, 2.
17 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 78.
18 Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010), 45.
19 John Ott, “Graphic Consciousness: The Visual Cultures of Integrated Industrial Unions at Midcentury,” American Quarterly 66, no. 4 (2014), 884.
20 Jane De Hart Mathews, “Arts and the People: The New Deal Quest for a Cultural Democracy,” The Journal of American History 62, no. 2 (1975), 337.
21 Scott Anderson, “Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart (Published 2016),” The New York Times, August 10, 2016.
22 “How to Save the Earth: Biggest Solutions for Climate Change | Time,” accessed December 3, 2020.
23 Nathaniel Rich, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change (Published 2018),” The New York Times, August 1, 2018.
24 Philip J. Deloria and Alexander I. Olson, American Studies: A User’s Guide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), 259.
25 “Artists Assail Lie for Aiding Vandal,” The New York Times, October 10, 1934.
26 “Jonas Lie and Property Rights,” Art Front, November 1934, 3.
27 “Art: Poor White’s Art,” Time, September 10, 1934.
28 “What Now, Mr. Bruce?” Art Front, January 1935, 3; “Municipal Art Gallery,” Art Front, November 1934, 7; “History of the Artists Union,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
29 Bernarda Bryson Shahn, Oral history, interview by Liza Kirwin, April 29, 1983, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Patricia Hills, “1936: Meyer Schapiro, ‘Art Front,’ and the Popular Front,” Oxford Art Journal 17, no. 1 (1994), 30.
30 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 72.
31 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 73.
32 Boardman Robinson, “A Letter from Boardman Robinson,” Liberator, July 1922, 29.
33 Irwin Granich, “Towards Proletarian Art,” The Liberator, February 1921.
34 V.I Lenin, “Our Party’s Press and Literature,” Workers Monthly, April 1926.
35 J. Louis Engdahl, “Build for the Third Year,” Workers Monthly, January 1926, 137.
36 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 75.
37 “Prospectus for Dynamo” in Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 75.
38 Prospectus for Dynamo” in Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “Art on the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front,” Art Journal 52, no. 1 (1993), 75.
39 “In This Issue,” New Masses, December 1931, 31; “In This Issue,” New Masses, June 1930, 22; “In This Issue,” New Masses, January 1931, 23.
40 Michael Gold, “Let It Be Really New!” New Masses, June 1926, 20.
41 Herman Spector, “Two Cities,” New Masses, December 1929, 6.
42 Herman Spector, “Two Cities,” New Masses, December 1929, 6.
43 Alan M. Wald, Exiles From a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 105.
44 Bernarda Bryson Shahn, Oral history, interview by Liza Kirwin, April 29, 1983, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
45 “Workers’ Art,” New Masses, November 1929, 21.
46 Michael Gold, “A New Program for Writers,” New Masses, January 1930.
47 Alan M. Wald, Exiles From a Future Time : The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 327; Donald Sloan, “‘Why Not Revolution?’: The John Reed Club and Visual Culture” (Dissertation, University of Kansas, 2004), 1.
48 Kenneth Davis, FDR, The New York Years, 1928–1933 (New York: Random House, 1994), 239.
49 Harry Hopkins, “They’d Rather Work” (Manuscript, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Georgetown University, 1935), Box 54, Folder 11, The Harry L. Hopkins Papers, Part 1.
50 June Hopkins, “The Road Not Taken: Harry Hopkins and New Deal Work Relief,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 29, no. 2 (1999), 307.
51 Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 85.
52 “For a Permanent Federal Art Project,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
53 Donald Sloan, “‘Why Not Revolution?’: The John Reed Club and Visual Culture” (Dissertation, University of Kansas, 2004), 25.
54 Bernarda Bryson Shahn, Oral history, interview by Liza Kirwin, April 29, 1983, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
55 “History of the Artists Union,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
56 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York” (Dissertation, New York, New York University, 1971), 54.
57 Phrase adopted from Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York” (Dissertation, New York, New York University, 1971), 54.
58 Harry Gottlieb’s Artists’ Union Membership Card, 1935, 11x17 cm, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
59 James Stout, “The History of the Raised Fist, a Global Symbol of Fighting Oppression,” National Geographic, July 31, 2020.
60 Ralph Chaplin, The Hand That Will Rule the World—One Big Union, Cartoon, Solidarity, June 30, 1917.
61 Stuart Davis, “Cover,” Art Front, May 1935, 1.
62 Boris Gorelick, Oral history, interview by Betty Hoag, May 20, 1964, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
63 Frank L. Kluckhohn, “Uncle Sam Expands as an Art Patron; With His Aid Thirty Thousand Creative Workers Are to Carry Culture to Every Comer of the Country,” The New York Times, October 6, 1935, 5; “For City Aid to Artists: Deutsch Sees Help for Creative Workers a Possibility,” The New York Times, March 9, 1934, 17; “For a Permanent Art Project,” Art Front, November 1934, 4.
64 “The Union Applies for an AFL Charter,” Art Front, July 1935, 2.
65 Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010): 51; Elinor Waters, “Unionization of Office Employees,” The Journal of Business 27, no. 4 (1954), 285.
66 Deborah Mutnick, “Toward a Twenty-First-Century Federal Writers’ Project,” College English 77, no. 2 (2014): 124–45.
67 “The Commercial Artist,” Art Front, January 1935, 5.
68 Howard Greenfeld, Ben Shahn: An Artist’s Life (Lexington: Plunkett Lake Press, 2019), 52.
69 Ben Shahn, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, October 3, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
70 Ben Shahn, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, October 3, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
71 Howard Greenfeld, Ben Shahn: An Artist’s Life (Lexington: Plunkett Lake Press, 2019), 55.
72 Howard Greenfeld, Ben Shahn: An Artist’s Life (Lexington: Plunkett Lake Press, 2019), 57.
73 Ben Shahn, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, October 3, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
74 “Artists Union Federal Art Bill,” Art Front, January 1935, 2.
75 Stuart Davis, “The Artist Today: The Standpoint of the Artists’ Union,” The American Magazine of Art 28, no. 8 (1935), 476.
76 Sharon Zukin, “Art in the Arms of Power: Market Relations and Collective Patronage in the Capitalist State,” Theory and Society 11, no. 4 (1982), 426.
77 Sharon Zukin, “Art in the Arms of Power: Market Relations and Collective Patronage in the Capitalist State,” Theory and Society 11, no. 4 (1982), 424.
78 “Letters from Our Friends, Art Front, November 1934, 2.
79 “The Sidewalks of New York,” Art Front, July 1935, 3.
80 “Letters from Our Friends,” Art Front, November 1934, 2.
81 Edward Alden Jewell, “In the Realm of Art: First Municipal Art Exhibition at Rockefeller Center,” The New York Times, March 4, 1934, sec. Art, 12.
82 Daniel Okrent, Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center (New York: Penguin, 2004), 313.
83 “Rivera RCA Mural Is Cut From Wall,” The New York Times, February 13, 1934, 21.
84 “Jonas Lie and Property Rights,” Art Front, November 1934, 3; “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
85 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
86 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
87 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
88 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
89 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
90 “300 Artists Demand Municipal Centre; Deutsch Pledges Aid to Group at City Hall,” The New York Times, May 10, 1934, 24.
91 “Artists to March to City Hall,” The New York Times, May 8, 1934, 21; “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
92 “Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, November 1934, 6.
93 “A Set of Plans,” Art Front,February 1935, 2.
94 “Plans for Auditorium and Art Center To Be Announced by Mayor Tomorrow,” The New York Times, December 15, 1935, 42.
95 “Civic Art Centre Planned By Mayor; Committee of 118 Named in What Is Held Initial Step in His Program,” The New York Times, January 7, 1935, 1.
96 “LaGuardia Ignores Demands of Artists; Mayor Refuses Reply to Letter of Committee Demanding Municipal Gallery,” The New York Times, November 3, 1934, 7.
97 Alfred Sinks, “Potted Palms and Public Art,” Art Front, February 1935, 4.
98 Alfred Sinks, “Potted Palms and Public Art,” Art Front, February 1935, 4.
99 “‘We Reject’ —The Art Commission,” Art Front, July 1935, 4.
100 “Municipal Art Gallery,” Art Front, January 1936, 4.
101 “Cracking Down,” Art Front, May 1935, 2.
102 “City Art Gallery Opened by Mayor,” The New York Times, January 7, 1936, 19.
103 “‘Our’ Municipal Art Gallery and Center,” Art Front, February 1936, 4.
104 “Self-Government and the Municipal Art Center,” Art Front, February 1936, 6.
105 “Why A Federal Art Bill,” Art Front, January 1935, 2.
106 “The Bill,” Art Front, January 1935, 2.
107 “Why A Federal Art Bill,” Art Front, January 1935, 8.
108 “Why A Federal Art Bill,” Art Front, January 1935, 2; “What Now, Mr. Bruce?” Art Front, January 1935, 3; “Artists on Work Relief,” Art Front, January 1935, 4.
109 “What Can the Artists Do?” Art Front, January 1935, 8.
110 T. H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America (New York : Henry Holt & Co., 1999), 259.
111 T. H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America (New York : Henry Holt & Co., 1999), 259.
112 Max Spivak, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
113 Harry Knight, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Max Spivak, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
114 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York” (Dissertation, New York, New York University, 1971), 12.
115 Morris Neuwirth, “219!” Art Front, January 1937, 4.
116 Morris Neuwirth, “219!” Art Front, January 1937, 4.
117 Boris Gorelick, “The Artist Begins to Fight!” Art Front, January 1937, 5.
118 Morris Neuwirth, “219!” Art Front, January 1937, 4.
119 Morris Neuwirth, “219!” Art Front, January 1937, 4; Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010), 48.
120 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York,” Art Journal 32, no. 1 (1972), 18.
121 Max Spivak, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
122 “The Meek Shall Inherit the Wage Cut,” Art Front, November 1935, 3; “Wages and Hours,” Art Front, December 1935, 3; “Prevailing Wages for Artists,” Art Front, September-October 1936, 3; Gerald M. Monroe, “Art Front,” Archives of American Art Journal 13, no. 3 (1973), 18.
123 “July 1st, 1936,” Art Front, February 1936, 3; Francis V. O’Connor, “The New Deal Art Projects in New York,” American Art Journal 1, no. 2 (1969), 74.
124 Francis V. O’Connor, “The New Deal Art Projects in New York,” American Art Journal 1, no. 2 (1969), 64.
125 Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010), 50.
126 “The Lag in the WPA,” Art Front, December 1935, 3; “Towards Permanent Projects,” Art Front, May 1936, 5; “Full Report of the Eastern District Convention of the Artists’ Unions,” Art Front, June 1936, 5.
127 “Organize Against Lay-Offs,” Art Front, July 1936, 3.
128 Martin R. Kalfatovic, The New Deal Fine Arts Projects : A Bibliography, 1933-1992 (Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1994), 441.
129 Francis V. O’Connor, “The New Deal Art Projects in New York,” American Art Journal 1, no. 2 (1969), 64.
130 Victoria Grieve, The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 85.
131 Laura Hapke, Labor’s Canvas: American Working-Class History and the WPA Art of the 1930s (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 53.
132 “Revolutionary Art at the John Reed Club,” Art Front, January 1935, 6.
133 “Harry Gottlieb Is Dead; W.P.A. Artist Was 98,” The New York Times, July 8, 1992, sec. Arts, 18; “Call for an American Artists’ Congress,” Art Front, November 1935, 6.
134 Gerald M. Monroe, “The Artists Union of New York” (Dissertation, New York, New York University, 1971), 98.
135 Anthony Velonis, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, October 13, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
136 Mary Francey, “American Printmakers and the Federal Art Project,” Resource Library, October 18, 2008.
137 Anthony Velonis, Oral history, interview by Harlan Phillips, October 13, 1965, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
138 Helen Langa, Radical Art: Printmaking and the Left in 1930s New York (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 55.
139 Helen Langa, Radical Art: Printmaking and the Left in 1930s New York (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 107–108.
140 Harry Gottlieb, Mine Disaster, Screenprint, 1939, National Gallery of Art.
141 Harry Gottlieb, Makers of Steel, Color lithograph, 1937, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
142 Harry Gottlieb, The Strike Is Won, Screenprint, 1940, Flint Institute of Arts.
143 Hyman Warsager, Gathering Logs, Screenprint, 1937.
144 Elizabeth Olds, 1939 A.D., Lithograph, 1939, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
145 Joseph Leboit and Hyman Warsager, “The Graphic Project: Revival of Print Making,” Art Front, December 1937, 9
146 Joseph Leboit and Hyman Warsager, “The Graphic Project: Revival of Print Making,” Art Front, December 1937, 9
147 Joseph Leboit and Hyman Warsager, “The Graphic Project: Revival of Print Making,” Art Front, December 1937, 9
148 Joseph Leboit and Hyman Warsager, “The Graphic Project: Revival of Print Making,” Art Front, December 1937, 10.
149 “The Lag in the WPA,” Art Front, December 1935, 3.
150 Helen A. Harrison, “Subway Art and the Public Use of Arts Committee,” Archives of American Art Journal 21, no. 2 (1981), 3.
151 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “The American Artists School: Radical Heritage and Social Content Art,” Archives of American Art Journal 26, no. 4 (1986), 17.
152 Virginia Hagelstein Marquardt, “The American Artists School: Radical Heritage and Social Content Art,” Archives of American Art Journal 26, no. 4 (1986), 22.
153 John Ross, Claire Romano, and Tim Ross, Complete Printmaker (New York, Simon and Schuster, 2009), 145.
154 “Max Arthur Cohn,” Smithsonian American Art Museum, accessed April 23, 2021.
155 Gerald M. Monroe, “Artists as Militant Trade Union Workers During the Great Depression,” Archives of American Art Journal 49, no. 1/2 (2010), 51.
156 Franklin Roosevelt, “Letter to the Federal Works Administrator Discontinuing the W.P.A,” December 4, 1942, The American Presidency Project.
157 Peter Marks, “Arts Workers Are Building a Labor Movement to Save a Creative Economy in Peril,” Washington Post, January 8, 2021.