The WPA at 75: Social Art Then and Now

Submitted by the Event Organizer

In 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the largest agency to come out of the New Deal, employing millions to carry out public works projects and created some of American’s most influential cultural projects.

75 years after the founding of the WPA, we ask: Does public art still matter today? Explore the intersection of culture and social responsibility with a group of panelist that includes:

• cover artist Owen Smith (The New Yorker)
• journalist and critic Oscar Villalon (The California Report, SF Chronicle Book review)
• historian Fred Rosenbaum (Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of SF Bay Area Jews)
• author and SF State professor Joel Schechter (Messiahs of 1933).
• recordings from the Museum’s StoryCorps StoryBooth, a program inspired by the WPA.

Location:  Contemporary Jewish Museum at 736 Mission Street (between Third and Fourth streets)

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