This past week, the public learned of yet another calamity from a seemingly unending stream of bad news: the Trump administration decided to accelerate the proposed sale of the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, D.C., which will likely lead to its demolition. Named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, the Cohen Building houses many works of art created specifically for it in the early 1940s. The most significant is a monumental mural by Ben Shahn, The Meaning of Social Security.

Part of the East Wall showing The Meaning of Social Security by Ben Shahn, photo by Timothy Noah

Shahn’s mural fills both sides of a long hallway: on the East Wall are images showing life before social security; on the West Wall, life after it. During the filming of the PBS documentary Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice (2002), my crew and I spent hours with this mural, which celebrates a great accomplishment by a government seeking to protect its citizens.

As art historian Frances Pohl says, Shahn was a strong supporter of Roosevelt’s New Deal: “The freedom to have health care and housing and work and leisure time—this was what the Social Security mural was all about.” Shahn made his case by contrasting images of poverty, abandonment, and child labor with health, work, and contentment.

Detail of The Meaning of Social Security depicting life before Social Security

In the documentary, as you see images of Shahn’s mural, President Franklin D. Roosevelt is heard giving a speech: “If the people during these past few years had chosen a reactionary administration or a do-nothing Congress,” he says, “Social Security would still be in the conversational stage, a beautiful dream which might come true in the dim, distant future.”

Petitions are now being circulated to save the Cohen Federal Building and its art, and preservationists from the worlds of architecture, art, and government are calling for support. According to Hyperallergic, Maine Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Arts Caucus, vowed to “fight this reckless plan and to protect our cultural institutions from this inconsiderate and destructive Administration.”

Detail of The Meaning of Social Security depicting life after Social Security

Murals, as a potent form of public art, often focus on historic turning points as well as on civic and political goals. Shahn’s mural celebrating the 1935 Social Security Act does both: one long side of the mural shows the grimness of a world when the very young, the very old, the helpless, and the poor are left to fend for themselves, while the other shows a new world where people thrive as their most basic human needs are met.

Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice (2002) was a PBS national program selection and a special State of the Arts production. See also the 1999 State of the Arts documentary featuring Ben Shahn’s wife, artist Bernarda Bryson Shahn, and a more recent State of the Arts story about the artists of Roosevelt, New Jersey, the former government town where Ben and Bernarda lived for most of their lives.