Bridgeport Post Office Mural
Photograph: History of Mail Transportation, United States Post Office, Bridgeport. Mural Painted by Robert Lamdin
According to art historian Patricia Raynor, “the United States-on post office walls large and small are scenes reflecting America’s history and way of life. Post offices built in the 1930s during Roosevelt’s New Deal were decorated with enduring images of the “American scene.”
Bridgeport, Connecticut was one of the cities to receive one of the beautiful murals that were a part of the Works Progress Administration. In 1936, Wesport artist Robert Lamdin was chosen to paint a mural on the upper walls of the new Bridgeport post office. The mural, three almost lifesize panels that stretch over one wall of the lobby were chosen to show powerful images of an important part of American history…that is, the transportation of mail. A stagecoach was depicted on one panel to show the early days of mail transport…via horses and wagons. Another panel showed the work inside the post office, with men carrying bags loaded down with huge deliveries. By the 1936, the idea of planes transporting mail was now a reality, so the mural showed that aspect of mail deliver history.
Robert Lamdin continued to create murals throughtout Connecticut. One of the murals he created was for the Westport library. The special mural that Lamdin created in Bridgeport, Connecticut still graces the wall of the main lobby of the Post Office on Middle Street. Bridgeport’s mural is still intact. Murals in other cities in the United States were either torn down or are in deteriorating states or repair. These WPA and New Deal murals are priceless pieces of art that were not only depict important moments of history, but also remain to remind us of the Roosevelt era and the history of this country.
