The 1941 Des Plaines Post Office and Murals

If you’ve ever stepped inside the Journal & Topics headquarters in downtown Des Plaines, you might wonder about the two striking murals that adorn its walls. They are examples of artwork created in the midst of the Great Depression, under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. Along with financial assistance for the old City Hall, Post Office, Rand Park Pool and Field house, and water and sewer improvements, the New Deal brought Des Plaines several fine works of art.

Post Office

The Journal & Topics building served as Des Plaines’ main post office from 1941 to 1974. Even though the Des Plaines Post Office’s building had only been built in 1930, by 1938 the volume of mail handled by had increased enough to warrant a new, larger facility. Scouting the city for the ideal location, the Federal Works Agency of the Public Buildings Administration found it directly next door, at the corner of Graceland and Webford.

The contract to build the $135,000 building was let on March 1, 1940 with a target opening date of January 1, 1941. In this era, many post offices were built with similar plans, but with different finishes, within general lines sketched by Federal Works Administration Supervising Architect Louis A. Simon. This post office was finished in a “colonial” style, to fit in well with the Municipal Building (since demolished) that had been completed in 1937 using PWA funds for $40,000 of its $90,000 cost. Both featured cupolas on their roofs and large, divided-light windows. It also housed additional federal offices in its basement, such as the IRS, civil service, and Agriculture adjustment.

Post offices and courthouses built in this era were furnished by the Department of the Treasury. Between 1934 and 1943, a New Dealagency, the Section of Painting and Sculpture within the Treasury (later the Section of Fine Arts) was responsible for commissioning over 1,200 murals and 300 sculptures for these buildings. In contrast with the better known Works Progress Administration, a more prominent New Deal program, the Section was not directed primarily toward providing relief for artists, but rather to boost morale of Americans enduring the depression by decorating new Federal buildings with quality American art by its most talented artists.

President Roosevelt promised the nation art that was “native, human, eager and alive — all of it painted by their own kind in their own country, and painted about things they know and look at often and have touched and loved.” 

Commissions were granted through anonymous competition open to any artist regardless of their financial need. Artists were encouraged to work with postmasters and communities to fine-tune their projects.

The works were not Norman Rockwell-style generic Americana, but instead were serious art created for their specific sites, although modernist styles like cubism were discouraged.

The murals at the post office were painted by James Michael Newell, an artist renowned for his work in fresco (wet plaster) murals. Newell is today best known for his work at the Potomac Electric Power Company building in Washington, D.C., and the 1936 fresco mural Evolution of Western Civilization at Evander Childs High School, in New York. His work was even displayed by Eleanor Roosevelt in the south foyer of the White House.

Newell’s style was often compared to Diego Rivera, and the same vivid colors, striking images, and bold shading are clear in these works. Newell frequently organized his murals in three parts, reading chronologically from right to left.

The first mural for Des Plaines was titled The Death of Pere Marquette. The mural depicts the death, due to dysentery, of French Jesuit missionary Father Jacques Marquette near Ludington, Mich. on May 18, 1675, alongside depictions of his travels and relationship with Native Americans. Marquette was known for exploring the Mississippi River with Louis Joliet, and the two became the first Europeans to live in Chicago during the winter of 1674.

The second mural was not completed until 1947 and is believed to be titled Conquest of the Prairie Lands. While Section murals were supposed to be non-controversial, it is difficult to believe Newell was not making a statement with this second mural, especially placed in context with Pere Marquette. While that mural shows Native Americans aiding an ailing priest, Prairie Lands depicts the violent Black Hawk War which resulted in the expulsion of Native Americans from the Midwestern prairie, opening them to settlers and resulting in communities like Des Plaines.

The right panel shows burning tepees and fleeing Native American women and children, with livestock rushing out in the background, next to the remains of a dead tree.

The center panel shows a settler’s wife lying dead next to a broken prairie schooner, while a settler prepares to kill a kneeling, nude and unarmed warrior.

The third panel shows a train of settlers rushing in on prairie schooners, while a farmer works and plants the newly fertile soil.

Part two, on Depression Murals in Des Plaines Schools, will appear next week.