Postmark pays homage to New Deal post office mural

Postmark Pursuit by Linn’s Staff

The Bovina Public Library of Delhi, N.Y., is offering a pictorial postmark designed by local artist Scott Hill that celebrates the oil and tempera mural painted by artist Mary Earley (1900-92), The Down-Rent War, Around 1845, that appears on the lobby wall of the Delhi post office, right above the postmaster’s door.

The cancellation pictures a disguised anti-rent protester blowing a horn accompanied by a dog under the words “THE ANTI-RENT WAR REMEMBERED,” with the sun on the horizon of five wavy lines and a circular datestamp.

From 1934 to 1943, the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury commissioned murals in federal buildings, mostly post offices and courthouses, across the country, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (1882-1945) New Deal initiative, with the objective of boosting the morale of Americans following the Great Depression.

Some 1,400 murals were created in more than 1,300 U.S. cities. In 1939 a New Deal 48-state competition for post office murals was conducted in which over 3,000 entries by local artists were judged, with the winning entries to be installed in post offices in each state.

Earley’s mural won for the state of New York and was installed in the Delhi post office in 1940. Unrelated to the 1939 competition, in 1941 Earley’s mural Dance of the Hop Pickers was installed in a New York post office in Middleburgh.

Earley’s Dehli mural pays homage to the Anti-Rent War, a tenants’ revolt in upstate New York between 1839 and 1845, in which “anti-renters” organized and declared their independence from the oppressive manor system of wealthy landowners, resisted tax collectors and successfully demanded land reform.

The fictional scene depicted on the mural shows local farmers just before dawn disguised in flamboyant horned costumes, often made from calico fabric and sheepskin, protesting the arrival on horseback of the local landlord, and resisting his efforts to collect rent and taxes.

On Sept. 17, to celebrate the mural and the Delhi post office, the Bovina Public Library invited local historian Ray LaFever to present a talk that explores the history behind the mural and its installment in the post office. The event concluded with a reception featuring original commemorative T-shirt giveaways.

To obtain the postmark, address your request to:

POST OFFICE MURAL Station, Postmaster, 8 Court St., Delhi, NY 13753-9998, Sept. 17-Oct. 16.

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