"Grand Canyon National Park: A Free Government Service" (National Park Service, about 1938)
A view of the Grand Canyon in pink and red above 'A free government service', with the Department of the Interior and National Park Service credit at the foot. The tell: the poster sells the government's own service, and the phrase 'free' shows the sponsor beside the scenery.
A national park poster of about 1938, made for the National Park Service by the Federal Art Project with C. Don Powell as designer. It shows the Grand Canyon in pink and red above the words 'A FREE GOVERNMENT SERVICE', with the Department of the Interior and National Park Service credit at the foot. It was part of a 1938-39 series and was aimed at the domestic public. The tagged technique is glittering generalities: 'free' and 'service' are positive words that present the sponsoring agency as a gift, while the scenery supplies the feeling of the offer. The poster itself makes no checkable claim about the service.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1938
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- U.S. National Park Service, Department of the Interior (designed by C. Don Powell, WPA)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Economy and finance, Home front
- Event
- New Deal
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved October 10, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. federal WPA work); LoC: no known restrictions on publication
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 2007676131. "Grand Canyon National Park: A Free Government Service" (National Park Service, about 1938)
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
A FREE GOVERNMENT SERVICE GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
