Government-sponsored architecture revived a neoclassical vernacular in the United States. Deemed the most suitable for institutional buildings and monuments, the classical designs of government-funded construction visually enhanced the Enlightenment values of democracy. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) supported the creation of several buildings, bridges, and monuments across the country, including the Philadelphia Court House (1934), the United States Naval Hospital (1935), the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (1934), the New York Triborough Bridge system (1936), the Cincinnati Railway Terminal (1933), the North Dakota state capitol (1934), and in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court Building (1935), the Jefferson Memorial (1937), and the National Gallery of Art (1937). Many of the buildings were decorated by federally commissioned works of art through a separate fund set aside for this purpose.

Sources:

Barbara Melosh, Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public Art and Theater (Washington, D.C., & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991);

Marcus Whiffen and...