Post Office Murals

by Artist Carson Davenport

​The Greensboro Post Office, just across South Main Street, is the site of two murals painted in 1939 as part of the New Deal Works Progress Administration, the WPA. Painted by artist Carson Davenport, one mural depicts a harvest scene, Cotton Picking in Georgia and the other, The Burning of Greenesborough, commemorates the Creek Indian massacre of 1787.
 
These works were commissioned by the US Treasury Department’s Fine Arts Section as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal during the depression. There were 850 “New Deal” artists that produced 1400 murals during this period. The requirements of the Treasury Department's Fine Arts section dictated that the art reflect the culture, economy or history of the locality.
     
Artist Carson J. Davenport was born in Danville, VA in 1908. Eleanor Roosevelt requested one of his paintings be hung in the White House. His art was also selected for exhibition at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Three of his murals were completed under the WPA project. In addition to the two in the Greensboro Post Office, one is located in the post office in Chatham, VA and is titled Harvest Season in Southern Virginia.
 
Source: Star-Tribune, Chatham, VA, March 21, 2001, Herman. E. Melton.