Insular Possessions: Alaska

James Michael Newell’s Insular Possessions: Alaska focuses on the pioneering spirit that provoked the development of the Alaskan frontier. The scene depicts many bureaus of the U.S. Department of the Interior working together within the territory. Government workers are shown restocking the waters to preserve the vital fishing industry, while a government official welcomes a new family to the area. The mining industry is represented to the left by the prospector panning for gold. A representative of the Bureau of Indian Affairs distributes wheat to Native Americans, while others at the far left share their knowledge of the landscape and its resources with the new inhabitants.

Newell focuses on the mutually supportive relationship between the territories of the United States in Insular Possessions: Virgin Islands. Newell focuses not only on the major export of the Virgin Islands—sugar cane—but also on the importance of government-sponsored services such as medical care and education.

Newell was born in 1900 in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Throughout the 1930s, Newell completed eight murals under two New Deal programs: the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) and the Federal Arts Project (FAP). The PWAP was President Roosevelt’s first large-scale art program during the Great Depression. From December 1933 to June 1934 the program employed more than 3,000 artists from across the country. Ninety percent of the project’s funding went towards artists’ salaries. The FAP was administered by the Works Progress Administration from 1935 to 1943, and aimed to provide jobs to artists who were on relief rolls and also to acquire artwork for non-federal public buildings.