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Post office murals gave moral lessons during Depression,
author says
By Loni Stapley
"Post office murals are more than pretty pictures."
Philip Parisi, managing editor of Technical Communication
Quarterly and an instructor in the English department
at Utah State University, spoke Tuesday afternoon in
the Eccles Conference Center to a small audience, centering
on the theme of heroes in Texas post office murals.
Parisi recently had a book published by the Texas A
& M University Press titled Texas
Post Office Murals: Art for the People, which
he began writing while on the staff of the Texas Historical
Commission.
"I wanted to share my fascination with [the
murals]," Parisi said of why he wrote the book.
Parisi explained that the murals were created for post
offices built during the Great Depression as a way to
create jobs for artists. As a part of the New Deal program,
the idea was to create artwork with themes of success
to give people hope during troubled times.
"Post offices were traditionally the center
of social life in small communities," Parisi said.
As people waited in line, they could study the murals
and hopefully find artwork that they related to.
Ninety-seven murals were created for 69 post offices
and federal buildings around Texas during this time.
These murals fell into many categories and themes,
but mostly revolved around the idea of the hero, including
Texas rangers, cowboys and Native Americans. Themes
of hard work, prosperity, family values and the quest
for success were hoped to bring faith to people during
hard times.
Parisi noted several famous individuals and historical
events depicted in the murals, including Davy Crockett,
the Alamo and Gen. Sam Houston.
The murals were usually about 15 feet up on the walls
in the post offices, which occasionally led to some
confusion by onlookers regarding the theme of the artworks.
Parisi cited one example where an elderly couple interpreted
a mural featuring a soldier getting his ankle wrapped
by a surgeon while a crowd of people looked on as a
group of men playing craps.
"You can't always assume that people
would immediately understand the subject of the murals,"
Parisi said.
Mostly, the murals were meant to send reassuring messages
to people, which often meant leaving out the bloodshed
and acts of violence normally associated with heroes.
For example, one mural depicted Texas rangers sitting
around a campfire, singing and playing guitars --
a far cry from their usual duties of rounding up the
bad guys.
"But hey, even heroes need some down time,"
Parisi said.
Parisi noted that the New Deal heroes depicted in the
artwork were initiators of peace and those striving
for prosperity -- essentially the everyday American.
"The heroes in post office murals come from
real life and the lives of people: workers, settlers,
lawmen and bandits who embody the archetypal qualities
of a hero," he said. "As we know, the real
heroes are the people themselves, their inner lives
and resources that we can summon up in times of great
pain."
Parisi has brought awareness to the Texas post office
murals in the hope that they will be preserved.
Several have been lost due to reconstruction and renovation
of the buildings they were originally created for or
are crumbling and neglected in warehouses.
"Ultimately, the purpose of the book is to call
attention to the murals as an artifact and remarkable
cultural and historical moment," he said.
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