Revisiting the Department of the Interior
William Gropper, Construction of a Dam, 1939, Department of the Interior (courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration, Fine Arts Program)
It is likely that most people, including Washingtonians, think about the Department of the Interior rarely, if ever. In fact, the most common response to the sex and drugs scandal that rocked DOI's Minerals Management Service last fall was probably surprise that something interesting could actually happen in the Interior Department. While those nefarious activities were happening mostly in the Denver headquarters, DOI's main location here in Washington is in an enormous building at 18th and C Streets NW that is well worth a visit. It was the first fruit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's attempt to revive the failing American economy through massive federal spending on infrastructure. If this sounds familiar, and not in a good way, consider just this part of FDR's New Deal.
Allan Houser, Singing Love Songs, 1940, Department of the Interior (courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration, Fine Arts Program)
If you want to see more Native American art than what the sometimes disappointing National Museum of the American Indian has to offer, Ickes gave special importance to the work of DOI's Bureau of Indian Affairs, not least by establishing the Indian Craft Shop, which has been selling Native American jewelry, handicrafts, and artwork since 1938. In that shop, built in the style of a southwestern adobe pueblo, exposed vigas and all, and in other locations in the building, Ickes commissioned Native American artists Allan Houser and Gerald Nailor to paint murals on Indian themes.
Allan Houser, Breaking Camp during Wartime, 1938, Department of the Interior, Indian Craft Shop (courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration, Fine Arts Program)
Houser was the son of prominent Chiricahua Apaches in Oklahoma, and he took to pronouncing his name the way his parents had, "Haozous." Ickes also commissioned him to paint a fresco secco mural in the building's south penthouse, a two-part Indian courting scene split around the archway near where Ickes installed a new-fangled soda fountain as an employee perk. Ickes specified that no Europeans be depicted in the penthouse murals (.PDF file), and the images there, some made using Native American sand painting techniques, document Indian customs, ceremonies, and manners of dress that had largely disappeared, having been made illegal by the Dawes Act.
At the ends of the main corridor on most floors, appropriate murals were placed at the entrances of DOI's major bureaus, some of which are no longer active parts of the department. In front of the Bureau of Reclamation, for example, there is a Dutch-style landscape showing the Salt River Dam project and the dry land reclaimed by it; by the Department of Mines, an oil mural showing oil drilling rigs, pipelines, and the results of the process at a gas station and a plane and tractor being filled up with fuel; by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, murals on the assimilation of Native American tribes. Murals toward the center of the building commemorate important missions and achievements of DOI, most famously an image of Marian Anderson's historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial, which Ickes helped organize after Anderson was prevented by the DAR from singing at Constitution Hall.
Gifford Beal, National Park Service: Tropical Country, 1941, Department of the Interior (courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration, Fine Arts Program)
The public may view the murals at the Department of the Interior only by pre-arranged tour, between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. from Monday through Friday. Special programs are now being offered on the first Wednesday and third Saturday of the month. Call the DOI Museum at (202) 208-4743 at least two weeks in advance of your visit.