This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
2 Standing and waiting, men sitting and waiting, the man and boy going wearily into the long empty perspective of a railroad track. Against a background of the typical stark, unlovely company house, I have placed in close proximity, waiting men and discarded machines. [[left margin]] Child Labor [[/left margin]] The panel to the left depicts the insecurities of childhood, the little girl of the mills opens doors to show us breaker boys working in a mine. The crippled boy issuing from the mine symbolizes the perils of child labor. To the right a homeless boy is seen sleeping in the street; another child leans from a tenement window. [[left margin]] Old Age [[/left margin]] The panel to the right shows the insecurity of dependents - the aged and infirm woman, the helpless mother with her small child. Thus, the three panels of the east wall:- If this is in any way inadequate it can be either elaborated or condensed. I think of the work in pictorial terms, and therefore I may well have neglected some aspect of it in presenting it verbally. We will discuss it Monday or Tuesday. Yours very truly, Ben Shahn