Lauren Arrington | BOHEMIANS ON THE BREADLINE

Join us for a conversation with Lauren Arrington as she discusses her newest release, BOHEMIANS ON THE BREADLINE interviewed by Keri Watson. The extraordinary and unexamined history of women making radical art under Roosevelt’s New Deal Like millions of Americans in the Great Depression, artists Alice Neel, Augusta Savage, Georgette Seabrooke, Lenore Thomas Straus, Elizabeth Olds, and Pablita Velarde embraced employment through President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. The Federal Arts Project was one of the most unique social experiments in U.S. history: mass public funding of art meant for the public. Murals were painted, sculptures cast, and art classes were taught, as these talented artists gave back to the communities they lived in. They were also making radical art that challenged racism, inequality, and capitalism—despite pressure by bureaucrats to dictate the art produced. When the New Deal programs were dissolved at the end of the decade, much of that art was destroyed or forgotten. The surviving works were absorbed into the landscape of our everyday lives. Situated in housing projects, parks, and municipal buildings, this art is seldom understood as more than a cultural artifact. But these are labors of love by women artists who put themselves at risk during tumultuous times. In vivid, eloquent prose backed up by archival research, Bohemians on the Breadline brings to life the intimate stories of these women—of tortured love affairs and fractured families, but also courageous activism and community mentorship, and above all their extraordinary art. LAUREN ARRINGTON is the recipient of the Robert & Ina Caro Award from Biographers International Organization, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award, and visiting research fellowships to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library; Cambridge University; Boston College; and Trinity College Dublin. Her writing has appeared in LitHub, the Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Florida, Lauren lived in the U.K. and Ireland for twenty years before returning to her home state. She earned her doctorate at Oxford University.