“Between 1935 and 1943 the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public’s imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived. This contemporary design illustrates many of the WPA-era posters, including those of our National Parks.” And so, alas, it’s not a reproduction of an authentic WPA poster, but it did fool me. This brilliant re-creation is by Doug Leen and Brian Maebius.

This card comes from Marsha, who bought this card in Hawaii in January, and mailed it to me from Wisconsin in February.

Want to visit some other exotic places from times past? Check out today’s Postcard Friendship Friday.

Natalia in Saint Petersburg, Russia was kind enough to send (along with several postcards featuring night views of her city) a couple of replicas of Soviet propaganda posters, scaled down to about 5 x 7 inches (12 x 18 centimeters).  The first, from 1929, features a poem entitled “Night Panel” (no, I don’t get it either) and a fine, upstanding young citizen shouting “Stop!” to flappers and other revelers.  My Russian is terrible, but I think that the gist of the poem, which starts with a phrase something like “Here is how things should be”, is that the youth should work and have faith in the government instead of in drink and debauchery.

And speaking of work:

This second poster from 1947 reminds the proletariat that, hey, you can work at night, too!  Of course, we’ll have to put you on the waiting list for tractor headlights; you should have them in about two years.