Labor and Industry Print Collection: 1859–1989

This collection brings together 473 prints documenting the American experience of labor, industry, and economic life from the Civil War era through the late twentieth century. Spanning lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, and screenprints, the works capture factory floors, railroad construction, agricultural labor, and the daily rhythms of working life. Artists represented range from early modern printmakers of the 1930s WPA era to postwar voices reflecting on automation and deindustrialization. Together, these prints offer a vivid visual record of how Americans have built, produced, and sustained their communities across more than a century of transformation.