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In 1938 identical twins Suzanne and Lucerne McCullough of New Orleans were commissioned by the United States government to paint the mural that now hangs in the Boonville, New York post office. The McCullough girls, then twenty-two, first researched the area by reading the novel Rome Haul by Walter D. Edmonds where they found that Boonville was a vital commercial site for the Black River Valley. The Black River Canal, which connects Boonville to the Erie Canal in Rome provided farmers the means to transport their products to other parts of the state.
The Black River canal was a thriving part of the local economy, and therefore a superb subject for the McCulloughs' mural. They were told to try to capture the essence of this central New York community, and when deciding upon a theme they could find none better than that of the strong, self-reliant, prosperous, family-oriented canal dwellers of the late 1800's. The McCullough sisters went to work to try to depict these qualities in their mural. The twins started at once on the first sketches and had finished them by December.
The strength needed to work on the canal is manifest in the men loading the barge in the left and center foreground. The merchants to the right seem to be in charge of the men loading, yet the artists put the laborers in the forefront suggesting that there is dignity in hard work.
To show the importance of family , they included the family of three in the right center. The family in the mural is perhaps going on a trip for the father is carrying a bag and they are dressed in traveling clothes. The painters also wanted to show that equality was important to the central New Yorker and included a black American in the mural; he is not in the foreground, for reasons unknown. This ideal of equality for minorities was noted for an important reason: the New Dealers believed that equality for African Americans, women, and other minorities was an important goal to strive for.
| Interpetive Essay | View 1 inside Post Office | View 2 inside Post Office | View 3 outside Post Office |