Plain Language summary: Dorothy Waugh’s National Parks Posters
This is what you see in this exhibition:
Poster House is showing posters by Dorothy Waugh.
Dorothy Waugh was an American artist and modernist designer.
The exhibition is called: Blazing a Trail.
The exhibition shows 17 travel posters that Dorothy Waugh made for the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States between 1934 and 1936.
The posters mark an important moment in the history of American graphic design.
Graphic designers make things like advertisements, books, posters, and packaging.
Dorothy Waugh studied art and worked as an illustrator and copywriter. She also wrote books for children and young adults. She was always very interested in nature.
When Dorothy designed the posters in this exhibition, she was working for the National ParkService as a landscape architect.
The Great Depression occurred in the United States in the early 1930s. It was a hard time for ordinary people and the economy.
The U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, thought that getting more people to visit the national parks would support the economy, lift the spirits of the country, and create a sense of national pride.
Before this, American railroad companies produced posters advertising the national parks. These posters showed the beautiful landscapes that a visitor would see from the window of the train.
President Roosevelt thought there should be a new poster campaign to inspire more Americans to visit the parks.
In 1934, Dorothy Waugh was chosen to design the new posters.
This was the first time the United States government gave a big project to one female designer.
Dorothy’s posters are different from the colorful and realistic landscape posters that were popular in the past.
Hers are modern and direct, but friendly and positive. Her posters do not have many colors.
The message of the posters is that the national parks give every person access to the beauty and natural resources of America.
The exhibition has important works, including:
- National Parks/His Hunting Ground of Yesterday, 1934
- National Parks/Life at Its Best, 1934
- Historic National Parks and Monuments, 1935
- National and State Parks, 1936
Poster House is the first and only poster museum in the United States.
This exhibition is the first one about Dorothy Waugh. This exhibition is also the first one to show all of Dorothy Waugh’s National Parks posters together.