[Posters] Shahn, Ben Break Reactions Grip Register Vote

A powerful poster, created by Shahn for the pro-labor Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Democratic Party during the United States midterm elections of 1946

No place, CIO-PAC, (1946). Original off-set color lithographic poster; 29 x 41 1/2 (73 x 105 cm.); mounted on linen, 33 x 46 in. (82 x 117 cm). Creasing from contemporary folds.

Shahn joined the Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO-PAC) in 1944 to produce graphic material in support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's successful presidential re-election campaign. Two years later, in 1946, he again worked with the CIO-PAC to create posters like the above (also see Lots 98 and 99) in support of the Democratic Party and President Harry Truman's administration during the midterm congressional elections, the first following the end of World War II.

Following the end of the war, the labor movement was at a turning point, as the economy contracted due to a decrease in government spending, and as the Republican Party increasingly attacked New Deal policies. "While the end of the war in 1945 should have created an optimistic climate across the nation, such was not the case...Truman had failed to come down firmly on the side of labor during the many strikes that were staged across the country in 1946, as unions attempted to maintain or expand the gains in wages and working conditions they had won during the war. Republicans waged an all-out attack on union actions while Democrats were split; some supported anti-strike legislation while others opted to try to preserve the alliance with labor forged during the Roosevelt years." (Francis Kathryn Pohl, Ben Shahn, 1993, p. 21). The Democratic Party suffered heavy losses in the midterm--with Republicans--in the minority since 1932, capturing both the House and the Senate. In 1947, over the veto of Truman, they passed the Taft-Hartley Acts (Labor Management Relations Act) that limited the organizing capabilities of unions nationwide.

The CIO-PAC was the first political action committee in the United States and was established in July 1943 to support Roosevelt's re-election in 1944. Following his success the CIO maintained PAC as a political committee to fund pro-labor legislation and provide financial assistance to CIO-endorsed candidates. In 1955 CIO merged with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and is now known as the AFL-CIO.