The Frances Perkins Center has partnered with the Lincoln Theater to present the remastered film “The New Deal for Artists” (1976) at 2 and 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 29, at 2 Theater St., in Damariscotta.

Sarah Peskin, chair of the Frances Perkins Center board, will present a post screening talk after both the matinee and evening screenings of the film.

With the failure of President Herbert Hoover’s policies at the end of 1929, marked by the stock market crash on Oct. 24, 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, the decade that began with the dream of endless progress and prosperity came to an end with millions unemployed.

American industrial workers who had lost their jobs lined up in the streets for a bowl of soup and hunk of bread. Depression, new technology, and foreclosure by the banks drove more than half the American farmers to bankruptcy.

By 1932 something had to change, and newly-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the New Deal to put America back to work. The Works Project and Farm Security administrations were formed to carry out this plan.

Frances Perkins, secretary of labor under Roosevelt, established programs to hire visual artists to embellish federal buildings under construction. She did this at the very start of the FDR administration. Eventually about 10,000 artists were employed by the various New Deal art programs, not to mention the thousands of writers, directors, actors, and others who were employed in their fields during the tenure of FDR from 1933 to 1945 and who are shown in the film.

Narrated by the iconic Orson Welles, “The New Deal for Artists” features a who’s who of 20th-century luminaries including Studs Terkel, John Houseman, Arthur Rothstein, Howard Da Silva, James Brooks and Nelson Algren.

Peskin will speak following each performance. Admission is general seating and tickets will cost $6 and $8, and can be purchased in advance or at the door, concessions will be available, and masks are optional. Running time is 90 minutes.

For tickets and more information, visit lincolntheater.net.

To learn more about the Frances Perkins Center, contact Michael Chaney, executive director, by email at mchaney@francesperkinscenter.org, call 207-563-3374, or visit francesperkinscenter.org.

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