During the Depression signs were put up outside of towns warning people not to stop to look for work. Today, local laws close parks, criminalize living on the street and urge “those people” to move on. Immigrants, mentally ill, displaced workers, drug addicts, veterans, children and families wander from community to community seeking economic security, housing and health care. There is no stopping, no safe place, no way back home. On the margins tent cities form.
New Deal policies sought to create jobs in order to allow workers a way out of poverty. The link between labor struggles and battling poverty was a part of the philosophy of the New Deal and many artists saw the need to defend workers in their labor struggles. Artists continue to portray the consequences of economic and political forces that affect people’s day-to-day lives.
