Description
This thesis includes the multi-disciplinary analysis of a compiled inventory of New Deal-era public artwork commissioned between 1934–1942 in San Diego County, both extant and those that have been lost or destroyed. The inventory was compiled through research of the historical record and available archives housing New Deal records using documentary archaeology methods, and the identified resources mapped diachronically using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The 58 identified art resources were then analyzed utilizing perspectives from iconology and stylistic analysis, historical archaeology, anthropological theories of political economy and cultural democracy, and applied anthropology to discern the cultural, economic, and political factors that contribute to conservation, or a lack thereof, of public artwork from the New Deal-era.
