#works progress admin.

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Boys sculpting a horse at the Harlem Community Art Center, 1937. The center was organized by the Federal Art Project and lasted from 1937 to 1942. It led to the formation of the Harlem Arts Alliance and became an exemplar for other such centers.

Artists who taught or studied at the center included Augusta Savage, Romare Bearden, William Henry Johnson, Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, Claude McKay, and Richard Wright.

Photo: Solomon Horn via Alamy

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Poster for Faustus, ca. late 1930s. Text reads, "W.P.A. Federal Theatre Presents Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe, Maxine Elliott's Theatre."

Photo: Everett Collection

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Poster for Federal Music Project of New York City presentation of operas, concerts, and chamber music at the Theatre of Music, 254 W. 54th St., ca. 1936-41.

Photo: Library of Congress (LoC)

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The men working on the road at 86th St. & Broadway are engaged in a WPA project.

Photo: NYPL/Unsplash

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A children's class at the Harlem Art Workshop, at the 135th Street branch of the public library. Susan McIver is teaching in the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, ca. 1933-34.

Photo: Posterazzi

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Rex Ingram as Jean Christophe in Haiti, by William DuBois, as a tempestuous liberated slave who led the people of Haiti in revolt and defied Napoleon Bonaparte.

The play opened at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, March 2, 1938 and transferred to Daly's Theater on West 63rd St. on July 11. It ran until Sept. 24 (168 performances). It has been described as a "melodramatic recounting of the 1802 uprising, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, that Orson Welles used as a basis for his now-famous Voodoo Macbeth, but Haiti depicts the actual events that transpired to give the Haitians back their country and rule."

It was a production by the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Times's critic Brooks Atkinson called Ingram's performance "gusty" and noted, "Mr. Ingram has been a good actor for a long time. It is not very often, however, that he finds a heroic part like that of Christophe, the leader of a cause. Massive inside a gaudy uniform, active as a pole-vaulter, and gleaming with sincerity, Mr. Ingram gives a rattling good performance." He also noted, "What with one thing and another, there is enough history in Haiti to make it socially respectable."

Photo: Associated Press

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July and August, ca. 1936: poster for Federal Music Project presentation of a series of concerts at the Jamaica YMCA, 8925 Parsons Blvd., Queens.

Photo: Library of Congress (LoC)