See America: WPA Posters and the Mapping of a New Deal Democracy

In September 1931, the American Automobile Association (AAA) announced a substantial boom in travel to the Western United States, with some of their travel bureaus reporting a fifty percent increase in the number of inquiries received over the previous year ("Organized Motordom" IO).1 The notice, which was printed in the organization's monthly magazine, credited the federal government with stimulating much of this tourism. It explained that federally subsidized highway and road construction, combined with "improved motoring services" and the low cost of vacationing in the national parks, encouraged motor travel.2 This tide of tourism, as the notice described it, continued under the Roosevelt administration, which sponsored a variety of roadbuilding programs and highway improvements in an attempt to spark the depression era economy. In addition to funding emergency road repairs, the administration subsidized the construction of new bridges and roads, as well as highways like Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Key West Overseas Highway. In addition to these projects, the government launched a series of promotions to encourage travel within the United States, including a "see America" campaign. As a part of this initiative, the United States Travel Bureau commissioned the Federal Art Project (FAP) to create a number of posters promoting domestic travel. The series, which includes a large pictorial map of the United States and several smaller posters of specific tourist sites, equated tourism with a knowledge of the nation that extends beyond the topography of the land. Illustrating historical sites, popular cultural attractions, and natural landmarks, the series links national identity with a shared history as well as geography. In promoting destinations that represented the nation's past and present, the collection exemplifies the depression era search for a usable past that could ameliorate social tensions and unite Americans by recovering and affirming national values. Moreover, it equated the Native and African American to this seemingly authentic past while downplaying their respective roles in the modern nation-state and promoting a vision of America predicated on whiteness. While scholars have written extensively on other FAP projects, including prints produced by the FAP's graphic arts division, few have focused on the project's posters. Furthermore, what has been published offers little contextualization for the works beyond the circumstances surrounding their production.3 The FAP's poster division, which had units in over eighteen states by 1938, produced over two million posters in eight years and made a significant contribution to the depression era visual culture (DeNoon 13, 22; O'Conner 305). Moreover, these posters were displayed in schools, community centers, subways, and other public fora; they served as an important medium of communication for the Roosevelt administration. This article represents one part of a larger study addressing the significance of these posters within the broader cultural context of the depression era. Drawing from the growing body of literature on tourism and race, I address links between the FAP's "see America" posters, the tourist industry, and racial performance. In addition, I argue that the series participated in a larger cultural dialogue surrounding the construction of national identity during the depression era. Tourism and the "see America" Poster Series The surviving "see America" posters were created by the New York City poster division of the FAP. The FAP was established in 1935 as a part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a re lief program designed to create jobs during the depression. The New York division, which was in operation between 1935 and 1943, was the first poster unit established by the Roosevelt administration (DeNoon 17). At the height of its production, the New York division employed approximately 35 designers, 20 printers, and 10-12 cutters (DeNoon 19). …