Raw deal: Pennsylvania artwork now under U.S. Postal Service copyright

Raw deal: Pennsylvania artwork now under U.S. Postal Service copyright - Midstate Editorials | Our Views and Yours with The Patriot-News: "From 1934 to 1943, American taxpayers funded paintings and sculptures in post offices as part of FDR's New Deal.

The goal was to boost morale and, in the words of FDR, have artists 'paint their own kind in their own country.'
It was everyday man's art on display not in high-brow galleries, but in that central artery of so many communities: the local post office.

For about $1 million at the time, the nation gained more than 1,000 works of art that many today dub as priceless.

But over the course of the last few years, these valuable works of art quietly became the property not of the taxpayers, but of the U.S. Postal Service."