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Art for All, Posters
for the People

A screen-printed poster shows a black blob with squiggly lines that depict a virus or bacteria and a sun shining on towards it on a light-blue background. The text reads, “PLANNED HOUSING FIGHTS DISEASE.”

Planned Housing Fights Disease, Federal Art Project, between 1936 and 1938. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Exhibition

  • The Living Room,
    1st floor

  • Free

Art for All, Posters for the People

“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second inaugural address, 1937

No government program has left a more visible legacy on the American landscape than the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration. Along with the construction of hundreds of federally funded buildings, including the Jane Addams Homes, the program employed thousands of artists.

Many of these artists were tasked with creating promotional posters for the programs and social values of the New Deal. 

As part of our commitment to this history, we are also offering a new poster designed by William Estrada for people to take away for free as part of our Art for All and Posters for the People Project.  


More exhibitions

Black and white image of a 1940s Jane Addams Homes kitchen. A mother stands at the counter with her two sons.

Historic Apartments

Experience the texture and fabric of public housing throughout time by visiting three recreated historic apartments showcasing different families’ experiences at different moments in public housing history between 1938 and 1975. The intimate individual, family and community stories become the lens to understand large national public housing policies and their impact…

Two wooden bookends, each with a copper baby shoe inscribed with the name “Daniel,” sit on a wooden table.

History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Public Housing

“What is an object that tells a story about your life and experiences in public housing?” History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Public Housing is a national effort to collect objects from public housing residents in diverse communities across the USA, and work with residents in storytelling and writing workshops to write their own labels…

On a sideways piece of lined notebook paper with old fashioned handwritten text, a pencil drawing of three indigenous women wrapped in blankets look directly at the viewer. At the top of the page is a sliver of a Chicago street map.

Still Here

Still Here uses art, archives, and public dialogue to explore and connect histories of displacement on the land where the National Public Housing Museum is located. As an institution that addresses displacement of public housing residents, we also want to understand the forcible removal of Indigenous peoples that came before and grapple with how those experiences are interwoven…


Exhibition Resources

Additional resources available at the front desk.