Roosevelt Mural
In The Roosevelt Public School, Roosevelt, New Jersey
1936-37 12' x 45'
BEN SHAHN
*click on the mural to see a somewhat larger and more detailed version, that will necessitate scrolling
Painter Ben Shahn created this fresco mural to commemorate the New Deal resettlement community of Jersey Homesteads, now called Roosevelt, N.J. The mural was created in what is now the Roosevelt Public School. The town was created as part of a government program providing relief for garment workers during the Great Depression. The panels depict the history of the town, from the eastern European origins of its Jewish residents and arrival at Ellis Island to the planning of their cooperative community. As the mural dramatizes, theirs was also the story of escape from dark tenements and sweatshops in the city to simple but light-filled homes and cooperative garment-factory, store, and farm in the country. Early supporters of the community, Albert Einstein and the artist Raphael Soyer are also depicted in the mural, alongwith many of the original residents of the town. Shahn was invited to create the mural by the architect Alfred Kastner, whose assistant principal architect for the Jersey Homesteads project was Louis Kahn. The artist created the mural and soon made the town his home, encouraging other artists to settle there as well. Shahn said of the work: "My first big mural job was the Jersey Homesteads school, and in one way it's still the most successful. People really look at it. They know it by heart. To them it's like the building, a part of the community."
This scan was made from the tri-fold postcard that was produced through the generosity of the Herman Goldman Foundation, and is the first in a series of postcards to be issued by the Roosevelt Arts Project.
Copies of the postcard may be purchased at Roosevelt Arts Project events for $2.00 each. If you would like to purchase the postcard directly, please contact:
Judith Trachtenberg, Secretary to R.A.P.
27 North Rochdale Avenue
Roosevelt, NJ 08555
phone# 609.426.8867
NOTE: Eventually, we expect to have clickable links within the mural, that will take you to enlarged segments of the mural accompanied by a text description of that scene.
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LAST MODIFIED: 15 March 1998, by R.A. Lloyd
