In 1937 Sternberg painted his first post office mural, "Carrying the Mail" in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. The mural was commissioned by the former United States Department of the Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, later known as the Section of Fine Arts. Sternberg traveled to Chicago, where he studied the city's history, architecture, industry, and workers which resulted in his mural "", for the Lakeview post office in Chicago. It depicts the history of the city from its first settlement of Fort Dearborn to the Great Fire to the life in the stock yards and the steel mills. In 1906 Upton Sinclair's novel, "The Jungle", had graphically described life for workers in Chicago's stockyards and steel mills and Sternberg strived to captured their struggle. In June 2001 a non-profit community organization, Friends of the Lakeview Post Office, was founded to facilitate a restoration of the mural. Parma Conservation of Chicago completed the work in 2003.