Checking Out a Post Office Mural in Madison, Illinois While Wandering on a Road Trip

This blog post picks up from where the last post – Discovering Locality While Wandering on a Road Trip – left off by the side of a horseradish field near Collinsville, Illinois.

After taking in the horseradish field, I realized that I had enough time to go to nearby Madison, Illinois (less than 15 miles from Collinsville) to check out a New Deal-era post office mural. The mural and its nearby location provided me the idea and context to continue my wandering adventure.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, a big part of The Gentle Art of Wandering is having an idea of something you want to do or to check out combined with some context on where to begin. An idea can be anything – a new trail to hike, a public stairway to climb, a new neighborhood to explore, or even a new post office mural to check out. Anything!

An idea along with some context is what gets you out the door to take action. The adventure and the Wandering can only begin when you take action! Once you start moving you can let your wandering skills and curiosity kick in to see what else you might discover along the way. Two basic tenets of The Gentle Art of Wandering are that when you let yourself Wander – You’ll Always Find Something and that One Thing Always Leads to Another! But none of this will happen if you don’t have an idea with enough context to take action.

And as for New Deal-era post office murals in general, they will be covered in much greater detail in an upcoming blog post. This post only covers the mural in Madison, Illinois and is used as an example on how a mural (or anything else that might be of interest to you) can extend or start a wandering adventure.

For this particular adventure, I drove towards Madison from Collinsville. Along the way, I passed some of the Native American mounds at Cahokia, an enormous landfill that is now taller than the tallest mound at Cahokia, and a NASCAR racetrack. Just before entering the center of Madison, the road went over some railroad tracks on an overpass. When I looked to my right, I spotted what must have been at least 50 vintage railroad passenger cars parked on the tracks. Many of them were pre-Amtrak vintage Pullmans and dome cars. Since I’ve always been interested in railroads, I knew I would have to check this out after seeing the post office mural.

When I reached the Madison, Illinois Post Office, the first thing I noticed was that there was not much of a business district surrounding the post office. I don’t know enough about the community to comment on the strength of the local economy, but there certainly was a “rust belt” vibe to the area.

 

 

When I entered the post office, the mural, Assimilation of the Immigrant into the Industrial Life of Madison by Alexander Raymond Katz, was high up on the wall to the left. My first impression was that the mural must have darkened over time (many post office murals have been restored and I certainly hope this one will eventually be refreshed), but when I took a closer look at the mural, it told an amazing story of immigrants from the early part of the 20th-Century assimilating into the heavy industrial jobs available in the Madison area at that time.

This is what makes the New Deal-era post office murals so wonderful. They were painted in the style of “the American Scene” and usually tell a story related to the local community during an era that is still very close to many of us through our parents or grandparents yet so different than today. Immigrants in the early part of the 20th-Century came from eastern or southern Europe. (The artist of this mural was born in Hungry.) Today’s immigrants primarily come from south of the border or Asia. Early 20th-Century immigrants came over to fill an insatiable appetite for low cost labor by heavy industry. Today’s come to fill an insatiable appetite for low cost labor by meat cutting plants, agricultural enterprises, and service industries.

During the New Deal, the Treasury Department was responsible for building new Federal buildings (typically Federal Courts and Post Offices). A small portion of the construction budget was set aside for artistic decoration using high quality artists. (If you do a Google Search on the artist of this mural, you’ll see that Alexander Raymond Katz is highly regarded in the art world and that his paintings command a hefty price today.) Although the post office murals were not meant to be a “jobs” program, the artistic decoration program did provide income to artists during a time when there was very little money to go around.

After getting a good look at immigrants assimilating into industry inside the post office, it was now time to find out why there were so many railroad passenger cars parked near the overpass. And, perhaps, nothing epitomizes the Industrial Age better than railroad cars. With that, I found my way back to the tracks and drove through an open gate. At end of the drive was Gateway Rail Services, Inc.

It turns out that Gateway is in the business of refurbishing and rebuilding railroad cars for private railroad car owners, dinner trains, scenic railroads, and anyone else who wishes to spend thousands if not hundreds of thousands on a railroad passenger car suitable to ride on a class one railroad track or to attach to an Amtrak passenger train. In addition to the railroad cars parked on the tracks, the Gateway grounds had several shop buildings to do everything necessary to bring a railroad car back to life. If there is such a thing as a boutique heavy industry concern, this is it!

After checking out the railroad cars, it was now time for me to head out and resume my road trip. But I do hope that I have shown the value of having ideas of things to check out whether at home or on the road and then allowing yourself to notice and follow-up on items of interest that you pass along the way.