The Fort Thomas Post Office: A New Deal Treasure

By Mary Casey-Sturk

Did you ever think about the building or the mural when you stop to buy stamps or ship a package at the Fort Thomas Post Office? After a recent visit, I started to wonder and found out some interesting facts, and you won’t even have to sign for them!

The New Deal

The United States Post Office, Fort Thomas branch is one of many post office buildings constructed around the country as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Roosevelt (FDR) took office in 1933 and the New Deal was an effort to respond to the crisis of the Great Depression and alleviate financial suffering and widespread despair. Under this program, FDR and the “New Dealers” launched many new programs to respond to a wide range of problems, including bank stabilization, economic stimulation, job creation, raising wages, investing in public works and modernization. The New Deal lasted until American entered the World War II in 1942.

In its ten years, the New Deal transformed the country and restored the faith of many.

Using federal agencies, local governments and with community input, it built hundreds of new roads, bridges, tunnels, libraries, schools, post offices and more. The Fort Thomas post office is one of those buildings and remains in use today. Across Kentucky, 21 post offices were built.

Beyond the building itself (built in 1939, opened in 1940), the building houses an example of New Deal artwork in its lobby.

The Mural

The mural, entitled, “General G.H. Thomas and Philip Sheridan”, was painted by Lucienne Bloch in 1942. In Kentucky, there were a total of 18 art projects, including murals, bas-reliefs (lightly carving a design into a surface) and sculptures. The next closest art project is located at the historic downtown post office in Covington. It has three sculptures, Carl L. Schmitz’s 1940 limestone sculptures, “Horsebreeding” and “Tobacco,” and Romuald Kraus’s 1942 bronze sculpture, “Justice,” all completed with funds provided by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. For more information about New Deal projects, visit www.livingnewdeal.org

The Fort Thomas Mural depicts General Philip Sheridan, who identified the land that became the military fort, and he named it in honor of his colleague, General George H. Thomas. To learn more about Sheridan, Thomas, and the history of Fort Thomas, visit the Fort Thomas Military and Community Museum.

The Artist

Lucienne Bloch (1909-1999) was a sculptor, muralist, and photographer. She was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the youngest child of composer and photographer Ernest Bloch. Her family emigrated to America in 1917.

A multi-talented artist, Bloch attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris at 14, apprenticing with well-known sculptors and painters.  

A contemporary and friend of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, she worked for Rivera on his murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Rockefeller Center. She produced some of the most famous photographs of Rivera and Kahlo throughout their lives and it was Bloch who stealthily took the only images of Rivera’s infamous Rockefeller Center fresco Man at the Crossroads (1934) and its notorious depiction of Vladimir Lenin. This fresco did not go over well with Nelson Rockefeller and it was quickly destroyed when Rivera refused to remove Lenin.

In 1936, she married Stephen Pope Dimitroff, one of Rivera’s plasterers and together they created fresco murals all over the United States.

From 1935-1939, Bloch was employed as an artist as part of the New Deal via the WPA/FAP (Works Progress Administration/Federal Arts Project) and completed murals for public buildings, including the Fort Thomas Post Office, the House of Detention for Women in New York City and more. She also was a freelance photographer for Life magazine where she captured the desperate conditions of U. S. autoworkers during labor strikes and protests.

In total, she and Dimitroff created nearly 50 murals across the United States. Dimitroff died in 1996 on their farm in Gualala, California, Bloch passing away at the farm in 1999 at the age of 90.

So, the next time you visit the Fort Thomas Post Office, take a closer look at the mural, and think about the artist that put her stamp on our history.