Unemployment Compensation

In the wake of the Great Depression, one of the chief causes of insecurity was the threat of unemployment. To address this social concern, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress created the Social Security Act in 1935. Unemployment Compensation was commissioned shortly thereafter to stand above the entrance to this building—the intended headquarters of the newly formed Social Security Administration—and speak to its work. The bas relief carving depicts an employed man (signified by a collared shirt, shoes, and lunch pail) extending a helping hand to a demoralized unemployed man. The superimposed profile of a man surrounds them and suggests the embrace of the state and the assistance offered by the Social Security Administration.

Emma Lou Davis was a graduate of Vassar College and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and she was active as an artist for more than thirty years. Davis was one of few women employed to create art for federal buildings during the New Deal era. She later changed careers and in 1965 earned her Ph.D. in archaeology from UCLA. As a curator at the San Diego Museum of Man, she established the Great Basin Foundation and was integral to bringing scientific rigor to the field of Paleoindian archaeology in California.