I'm reading a book from the @marinestudios library about how FDR's New Deal employed artists.

Tens of thousands of them.

Just as a sample, 1100 new Post Offices got murals or paintings, all new commissions. They celebrated ordinary life.

The Federal Music Project employed 15,000 musicians, gave 225,000 performances, to an audience of three million people.

It also catalogued music, making a record of 5500 works.

And recorded folk music. And pioneered music therapy.

The programme "brought the artist closer to the interests of a public which needs him, and which is now learning to understand him. And it has made the artist more responsive to the inspiration of the country." (Holger Cahill)

The programme Cahill ran - one of many programmes - employed 5000 artists. Art for schools, hospitals, government buildings. Produced 108,000 paintings and 18,000 sculptures. Also produced stage sets, architectural models, posters, stained glass.

The Federal Writers Project employed 7500. They produced guides to every state, to major cities, 150 volumes about life in USA, enough books to full seven 3 metre bookcases. Three million copies were printed.

The Federal Theatre Project employed 12,700 and they entertained an audience of 30 million people, 75% getting free tickets.

An all-Black Macbeth, Living Newspapers - dramatic telling of news stories (racial injustice, worker rights, housing disceimination), radio theatre.

Then there were ampitheatres carved from parks, and monuments erected, and bridges built.

And furniture - tables and chairs and cushions and curtains.

And, yes - exhibitions in empty shops.

The whole thing is just remarkable, and shows what you can do.

I started re-reading this a week ago, and today Cummings has started chucking FDR and New Deal into conversations.

Let's hope they remember - artists and writers and actors and musicians played an important part. They threaded it together, created a national narrative.