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TO: ALL PROJECT WORKERS

Attached is a copy of a letter to the Editor and Publisher of the N.Y.Herald-Tribune in reply to an editorial in that newspaper attacking the work of the five art projects. We are all proud of the splendid record the projects have made. A familiarity with the facts contained in this letter will enable project workers to reply effectively to similar unjustified attacks when encountered. 

Paul Edwards, Administrator

April 28, 1938

Dear Mr. Reid:

On behalf of the 8,000 men and women of the five WPA art projects in New York, I would like to answer your editorial of Sunday, April 24, captioned "A Fantastic Project".

I would like to lay before you, as briefly as possible, the collective record of accomplishment of the projects and I would like to give you an idea of the extent to which the people of this city have responded to the opportunities which theses projects have made available to them. We will then have a solid basis for appraisal. 

The artists and craftsmen of the New York Federal Art Project have produced in the two and one-half years, up to April first: 6,334 easel paintings, 57 murals, 24,735 prints, 1,142 pieces of sculpture, 351,289 poster reproductions and 15,048 original photographs. This record of production should be an adequate reply to the suggestion of indolence inherent in your editorial. 

Simultaneously, the art project has carried on a program of public education in the arts. On April first, 412 teaching centers throughout the Greater City were in operation under the direction of competent instructors. 

The great majority of the paintings, prints and sculptures that have been produced have been loaned on request to public schools, hospitals, libraries, and other public and civic institutions.

No murals have been placed on walls or otherwise except where requested and murals of outstanding excellence have been executed for Ellis Island, the Williamsburg Housing Project and the Lincoln Hospital. The designs were approved in advance and the resulting murals have evoked the critical approval of the city's leading connoisseurs of the mural art.

Tens of thousand of WPA posters and photographs have been utilized with splendid effect in New York civic-improvement campaigns - public health, public safety, police and citizenship.

The 412 teaching centers would not be in operation were there not public demand in the concrete form of waiting lines of New Yorkers applying for art instruction. To April first, such instruction in the various arts have been given to over 450,000 children and adults. While no Raphael may emerge from this great body of students, rich veins of creative talent in the community have been revealed and their attendance at WPA classes has brought to almost one-half million New Yorkers a deeper enjoyment of art. 

Nearly a million other New Yorkers in these two and one-half years have flocked to the almost one thousand WPA gallery and other art exhibits of the work of our artists. Would it not seem that the WPA has stimulated in this city a new and unprecedented appreciation of the arts, that it has carried art to the people as it has claimed, and that it has enriched the cultural life of this city?

Art critics of our metropolitan newspapers and leading weeklies have shown deep interest in the WPA work and consistently have stressed its value in developing a broader cultural basis among our citizenship.

For instance, the distinguished critic, Mr. Lewis Mumford, has said: "No one could have imagined in 1933 that (the Federal Art Project) would broaden into a movement as solid in achievement and as encouraging to the younger writers and painters... But the government has done more than provide makeshift jobs. It has set up schools, it has created museums and art galleries, it has exposed for the artists' exercise and the public's delight whole acres of hitherto desolate walls in school houses and post offices and libraries and prisons. It is all very sudden and unexpected and fabulous -- enough to set one singing the 'Star Spangled Banner' aloud while walking down the street..."