New Deal Art: "Flop House"

Above: "Flop House," a tempera on fiberboard by Edward Millman (1907-1964), created while he participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1937. Flophouses provided cheap living accommodations for transients, low-wage workers, and the homeless. A recent article on Alternet highlights the persistent problem of homelessness in America today, in places like New York, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, as long as millions of voters continue to vote for trickle-down economics (or don't vote at all) homelessness will never be solved. A few temporary improvements here and there, sure, but never a wide-scale, permanent solution. Corporate America has perfected the art of paying workers as little as possible, giving all the profits to owners, executives, and investors, and then describing the resulting mass income & wealth inequality as "freedom" and "entrepreneurship." And, by and large, the public has bought it. (See, "Number of Homeless Children in America Surges To All-Time High," Associated Press, Huffington Post, November 17, 2014). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.