[Occupymendocino] Save the Post Office- sign the petition

[Richard Karch]

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/new-deal-post-offices


Save the Post Office
Closures, Consolidations, Suspensions: Stories, Analysis, Opinion


New Deal Post Offices for Sale
Dismantling a Legacy
http://www.savethepostoffice.com/new-deal-post-offices
During the New Deal, the federal government built over 1,100 post offices, and many of them are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  According to the National Register website, during the decade of the New Deal the government built three times the number of post offices it had built in the previous 50 years.  Many of these post offices were built by the Public Works administration, and while there was a strong desire to complete projects quickly, "the PWA also stressed the importance of high quality in order to ensure 'public works of an ensuring character and lasting benefits, according to its 1939 report.  That's partly why so many of these post offices are now on the National Register.

The New Deal also commissioned murals and sculptures for many of these post offices, as well as for libraries, schools and other public buildings.  A thousand post offices in the country "continue to house this uniquely American art for people to enjoy as they go about their daily lives" (US Postal Service website).

As Marlene Park and Gerald Markowitz write in Democratic Vistas: Post Office and Public Art in the New Deal, "The New Deal sought to make the national government's presence felt in even the smallest, most remote communities. . .   The post office was 'the one concrete link between every community of individuals and the Federal government' that funtioned 'importantly in the human structure of the community.'"  The post office "brought to the locality a symbol of government efficiency, permanence, service, and even culture."

The US Postal Service is dismantling the institution of the community post office and the rich legacy of the New Deal.  The USPS has announced that it will be...go to web site for more of story. 

SIGN THE PETITION


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