Work With Care — WPA Public Health Poster
Nathan Sherman, 1936
No print size passed the check for this piece: at 8 x 10 in, 64 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged. We would rather show it than sell a soft print.
See pieces like it you can buyA WPA Federal Art Project public-health poster urging safe work practices in industrial jobs, printed by the Pennsylvania Federal Art Project. The FAP treated civic instruction as worth the same fine-art print medium as the parks — nothing about a safety poster excused it from being well made. A single raised hand rendered as flat silhouette, no shading, no half-tone. Care, drawn plainly enough for anyone to read from across a factory floor.
- Maker
- Nathan Sherman
- Date
- 1936
- Medium of the original
- Advertising poster
- Original held by
- Library of Congress
- Credit
- Library of Congress · via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- Cleared for print
- Catalogue number
- PA-00859
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 8 x 10 in | 64 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 8 x 12 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 11 x 14 in | 45 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 12 x 16 in | 40 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 12 x 18 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 16 x 20 in | 32 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 16 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 18 x 24 in | 26 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 20 x 30 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 24 x 30 in | 21 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 36 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 30 x 40 in | 16 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 36 x 48 in | 13 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 40 x 60 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 519 x 640 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 4, lights 235 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0.1% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 14.3
The Poster Atlas
The national-parks series: the parks belonged to everyone, and so did the art.
All 46 pieces from The Poster Atlas
